


This Side of Abbadon

by dendrite_blues



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Dysphoria, Fade Bullshit, Friends to Lovers, Lyrium Withdrawal, M/M, Mind Meld, Soul Bond, The Dorian Pavus Guide to an Addiction Free Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-19 01:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dendrite_blues/pseuds/dendrite_blues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Templars cannot survive without lyrium.  When Cullen nearly dies from withdrawal, Dorian's attempt at a cure inadvertently throws a soul bond into the mix.  With no way to remove it, they must learn to live with one another, for better or worse, forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Cullen insisted on speaking with Cassandra in private, he hadn't anticipated this. They usually met in her quarters, but instead she lead him into the smithy and sat him in a chair near the fire. The blacksmiths had left for lunch some time ago, liable to return any minute and find the two of them bickering like old wives. He searched the forge with his eyes as if the answer to his problem might lurk somewhere among the furnaces and anvils.  
  
She had agreed to help believing his condition would improve in time. The first month ruined him; weeks at sea passed in a haze of pain, alternating between lucidity and vivid hallucinations, and with the horrors of Kirkwall so close behind, he had trusted her faith without question.  
  
Now, months later, that faith grew more brittle with each use, like a whet stone under the blades of an army. Life became a constant process of managing his symptoms. Every night he went to bed only so he could claim he tried. Sleep eluded him, and he often woke before dawn to empty his stomach into his chamber pot. Next came drills he no longer possessed the patience to lead, and whose racket gave him pounding headaches which only grew when he dug into his paperwork. He avoided eating so he could avoid retching, and instead suffered chills and cold sweats through his evening meetings. Dinner he ate in public, to keep up appearances, before retiring to the chapel to chant more unanswered prayers. No matter how he begged, Cassandra remained as unmoved as the Frostbacks and the hateful cycle continued.  
  
A wave of nausea rolled his gut and he wished, idly, for a way to mirror his pain in the Seeker's body. That way he could show with sensations rather than words how the withdrawal wrecked him. The room swayed, and Cassandra steadied him with a firm hand on his arm.  
  
"Don't you see the state I'm in?" he asked, resting his head between his knees to contain the vertigo. His mouth filled with spit and he swallowed around the urge to heave. Perhaps she would be convinced if he sunk low enough to toss his lunch like a drunk in broad daylight.  
  
"I will hear no more of this, Cullen. It will pass." She said, resting her hand on his crown. "Let your heart not be troubled. The Maker does not build walls to bar our way, but to guide us to where we are meant to be."  
  
"I will endure." he said, only to appeased her. She stalked to the door, and the sun illuminated spinning dust motes that darkened as she passed.  
  
The moment the door clicked shut he lunged for the nearest vessel, a pewter pail with dirty water inside, and emptied his stomach into it. The smell revolted him, not the usual acidic stench, but putrid, like a dead animal left to rot. Exhausted, he rested his head on the rim of the bucket, panting and shaking and trying to pull himself together. The sound of the door opening once more broke him through the fog.  
  
Scrambling to right himself, he wiped his lips with the tail of his tunic and rubbed at the smudges under his eyes. He couldn't do anything to cover the smell. The intruder cursed, and he recognized the voice, its silvery tone and prim accent unmistakable. Dorian.  
  
"Well, well, what have we here? The Commander of the Inquisition losing his liquor before midday." he said, clicking his tongue, "What will people say?"  
  
Generally, he reserved judgement on recent acquaintances, but Dorian came with a track record. As they escaped Haven through the Chantry tunnels, most of the mages agreed to hold their spells, lest they cause a cave in. Cullen took care to phrase it as a request, to treat them with respect. But Dorian, the arrogant sod, had stared him down and shot a fireball the size of a caravan as far down the tunnel as they could see. The smug tilt of the Tevinter's mustache as he strutted into the darkness crawled into his memory and refused to leave.  
  
"What brings you here, Dorian?"  
  
"A painfully obvious deflection, but since it's about me, I'll allow it." Dorian said, crossing his arms and leaning a hip against the nearest anvil, "Smithing water has many useful properties that closely mimic a rare and expensive solvent. I've been toying with some transmutations."  
  
"Oh." Cullen blinked dumbly down and back at Dorian, who leaned over to inspect the bucket with a sneer.  
  
"But perhaps this isn't the best time for my enthralling exploits in herbalism. You look dreadful."  
  
"We can't all be as fit as you." Cullen said, pushing himself to his feet, "Is it that obvious?"  
  
The one saving grace of the pit he threw himself in after Kirkwall was that, as far as he could tell, no one seemed to notice it. If he spent War Table meetings clutching his head, Leliana and Josephine saw a man pondering troop deployments. If he excused himself from drills, the soldiers saw a Commander busy with more important work. The idea of anyone noticing his condition terrified him.  
  
Dorian gave him an assessing glance, plucking at his clothes until they sat neater, and patting him on the shoulder in a way that was only half patronizing. An impressive display of humility, for him.  
  
"Three breaths from death, I'm afraid. A bit like a fellow I once met who head butted a halla."  
  
A laugh caught Cullen by surprise, bubbling up to the surface uninvited. The image of a man clashing heads with a halla struck him as an apt comparison.  
  
"In that case, I'll start wearing my helmet around." he joked.  
  
"See that you do. Since you soiled my would-be solvent, I suppose there's no reason to stay." Dorian said, making for the door, "But do come and find me if you need a pick-me-up. My virility potions are legendary in Highever."  
  
He wished his problems had such simple solutions. If such a world existed, he'd go there without hesitation.  
  
"One more thing-" Cullen called.   
  
Dorian turned, gazing openly at him. The man's elegance struck him in the midday light, arms stretched across the door frame with gold circlets winking from his shapely biceps.  
  
"I..." he stuttered, momentarily forgetting what he meant to say. The man arched an eyebrow, waiting. "I would ask that you not speak of this to others."  
  
"And waste perfectly good blackmail? Perish the thought." Dorian replied, slipping out into the courtyard with a grace Cullen envied.  
  
Only minutes remained before the first bell of the afternoon rang and the craftspeople returned to work. He aimed for nonchalance as he passed, but couldn't hold back a rueful grin when they ran back out of the smithy seconds later, clutching their noses and shouting.  


* * *

  
  
The following night redefined his standard of pain. Every symptom the months taught him to tolerate abruptly escalated. The familiar muscle aches became debilitating cramps, and the headaches now came with intense vertigo that made it impossible to sit at his desk.  
  
Determined to salvage the day, he took his field reports to his loft and attempted to author replies from the comfort of his bed. It seemed a successful plan right up until he reached to refresh his ink and an enormous black beetle crawled out of the well.  
  
The sight of a second second one emerging from his bedding spooked him and he jumped to his feet. Snatching his boot from the floor, he raised his arm and looked back to the bed. Hundreds of little black bodies writhed there now, pouring from the well in oily waves and skittering into his sheets. He struck at the horde, a rain of blows he swore went right through them. A revolting variety of ants, spiders, and centipedes, crawled on him, all trailing a horrible inky blackness everywhere they touched. Stepping away, he sought clean ground and landed against the far wall, beneath the limbs of the tree growing through the hole in his roof. Something itched behind his ear and he scratched his scalp, hoping with his whole being that none had burrowed there.  
  
"Hey there, it's alright. They're all gone, you can open your eyes."  
  
Footsteps approached him, and when he turned to them his breath caught. Warden Amell appeared, her kind eyes smiling at him exactly like he remembered. She was... Maker, she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, thin and petite but strong in her will. She knelt before him, her face in front of his, and it gave him chills. Over her shoulder he could see his wrecked bed, sheets pulled to the floor and stained with ink, but devoid of bugs.  
  
"Aren't you supposed to protect me, and not the other way around?" she said, her hand coming to his cheek and caressing. He thought he might vomit again.  
  
"You're dead."  
  
"I'm right here, silly man."  
  
"I'm-" he choked, "I'm hallucinating."  
  
Cullen rushed passed her, stumbling for the ladder to his office. He needed to leave before he believed her. Because he wanted to believe her, very badly. Sliding down the ladder and racing across the room, he through himself into the cold. The stones froze his bare feet as he hurried across the battlements, wrenching the door open and collapsing against the inner wall. Her voice echoed in his head, _where are you going, why are you leaving, I thought you loved me,_ and it's everything he could do to keep walking.  Close now, a few more steps to Dorian's study, to the interesting, infuriating man who offered him help when everyone else told him to buck up and soldier on.  
  
He reached the alcove like a man on the run, what little forethought he possessed crumbling to dust at the sight of the empty chair. Amell's reflection mocked him in the little arched window, and he panicked. Books fell from the shelves as he shuffled through piles of paper with shaking hands. Lyrium, he needed something similar but different. There had to be a way.  
  
The iron-ringed handle of the library door clanked like a guillotine falling, and someone climbed the stairs from the rotunda. Pain whited out his vision, sent blood coursing through swollen veins and his head pounded. Stumbling out of the nook toward the opposite door, he ran as fast as his seized legs allowed. Thinking was difficult, reduced to its most basic form, mere inches above animal instinct. No one could see him like this, it would discredit the Inquisition. He must not fail the Inquisition.  
  
"Commander?" Dorian called, alarmed. Cullen wrenched open the door and threw himself out, the blast of mountain breeze on the ramparts a welcome balm. Dorian's voice rang out into the open air, amplified by the domed ceiling and accompanied by the frightened cries of Leliana's birds. Each step wobbled, like walking on stilts, and Dorian caught up to him with ease. He faltered, fearing he'd lost his balance until he registered Dorian's fist clutching his mantle. Muscled arms pulled Cullen closer until all he saw was Dorian's face floating in the middle distance.  
  
He'd never spent an inordinate amount of time inspecting men's faces. They weren't his area, but then nothing much was after two decades of bachelorhood. No matter, he didn't need expertise to recognize this man's beauty. Handsome, he ought to call it, but he kept coming back to pretty. Pretty like Amell with his smooth skin and clever eyes.  
  
Dorian was angry, Cullen realized. He should have come up with a word or twenty to explain himself. Unfortunately, his vision went blurry and all he could think about were variations on the theme of Dorian's furious face. His ears were angry, his cheeks were angry, his eyeballs were angry. Even the sprouts of hair along the plucked edges of his brows were angry--and there were quite a lot of them weren't there? How different he must look without his sarcastic little arches, how sincere.  
  
He imagined a bolder slant to those brows, safe behind a metal mask with metal hands wielding a glittering sword, clever eyes daring him to strike. Coy. The sort of eyes that chanted songs of glory and honor only to smother them in temples of silence. Eyes that delighted in hunger.  
  
Lost in the reverie, it seemed important to know where he was. Something solid held him up, and he followed it through his legs. A peculiar buzzing ran circuits along his back and it startled him closer to awareness. Crystallized tears sealed his eyes shut, and it hurt to pry them open. Green. His eyes wouldn't focus, and so all he saw was an alarming wash of green with pink little smears where his arms lay. He heard a small moan and only registered it as his when he took a breath and the sound morphed into a breathy gasp in his mouth.  
  
A hand warmed his back, holding him down, or was it pushing? Had he risen? He felt like he was falling, and so he must have risen up. A shiver overcame him, his whole body keening in a great wordless _yes_  that rose through his chest like a living thing. It had been so long since anybody touched him.  
  
Someone spoke to him but his ears didn't want to listen. He wished they had, because soon the hand left and he had no idea what he ought to say to get it back. More words passed over and the tingling returned, tiny sparks of electricity that made his muscles twitch and spasm and gradually relax.  
  
A cold weight settled on his back and the remaining soreness eased. The loss of discomfort made him pliant and exhausted, his body consumed by little flares of pleasure. He thought he ought to say something, but a low voice washed up from the greenness. A firm voice, the kind of voice he'd like to clutch with both hands.  
  
"Sleep," it said, and Cullen obeyed.  


* * *

  
  
He slept in rises and falls.  
  
Many waves passed in dreams of rites, and lyrium, and demons with pretty faces. He dreamed until the voice called him up. Up and up until he broke the surface into proper wakefulness, gasping as though he were really underwater all along. The stench of acid invaded his nostrils and he choked, rolling to his side as gut-deep coughs racked his body.  
  
"Oh good, I was about to wake you." Dorian said.  
  
He sat on a stool with his back to Cullen, hands flitting about a wooden worktop. The wall behind him had no windows, only bookshelves all the way to the ceiling and flickering candelabras. A dungeon, no, the forgotten study by the undercroft. Spindly shelves lined the hexagonal walls, packed tight with books, jars, and ceramic tablets. An enormous grimoire sat on a stand behind the table where a network of vials and flamestones brewed. Dorian poured a steaming urn into a squat round bottle, his free hand emitting dense little puffs of frost around the base. After a time, it began to emit glowing beams of turquoise and sapphire and Dorian's shoulders lowered in relief.  
  
Heavy leather gloves extended up to his elbows, but he managed to lift the poultice with only the barest touch of his fingertips. Spinning around on the stool, he redirected his speech like a cracked whip when he caught Cullen's alert and attentive gaze.  
  
"Properly awake this time? Pity. Half-dead was a good style for you." he said, placing his middle finger to his lips and removing his glove with his teeth.  
Cullen meant to speak but no words volunteered themselves. Which was just as well, because Dorian needed no help carrying on a conversation by himself.  
  
"My own fault, I suppose. Proof my remedy works. Why must I be so good at everything?"  
  
"Humble, too." Cullen whispered, his voice like a dry hinge.  
  
Dorian closed in on him, which he didn't register as a threat until the man pressed the bottle to his lips and pinched his nostrils with his newly bared hand. He grabbed Dorian's arms, but the man was strong and his position put Cullen at an awkward angle. Their eyes met and he pleaded silently as he ran out of breath, but met only cold resolve.  
  
"Drink, Commander, before you asphyxiate."  
  
He gave a token resistance, holding on to each second out of pure stubbornness before swallowing. It burnt all the way to his stomach, and a drop caught in his throat sent him into another storm of coughing. The moment Dorian released him he scuttled off the cot and landed hard on the opposite wall, sweaty and sleep-stale.  
  
"What-" he asked, still struggling to breathe. The stone was cold against his skin, and he found he'd been stripped to his knee breeches and smalls.  
  
"Extract of lyrium. Infused into a reagent and diluted with enough elfroot to drown a quarter horse."  
  
"You gave me-- No, no, no...." Cullen whispered, hands pressing into his abdomen as if they could somehow dig the potion out of his body.  
  
"You were dying, Cullen, we had few options."  
  
"Andraste preserve me, I'm right back to the start. I'd made it two months!  
  
"And with such impressive results! From conquering armies to invading libraries. Digging around in mages' pockets, hoping to catch a fix. A real success story."  
  
"You had no right to decide for me-" Cullen said, grabbing the man's ridiculous collar and hauling him off balance.  
  
"I made no such choice!" Dorian yelled, pressing his hands to Cullen's chest, "If you have a problem with being alive, take it up with the Inquisitor."  
  
Sparks erupted up and down Dorian's arms, the scent of ozone lingering in the air, and he pushed Cullen away. Everything went white as a stinging pain spread through him, rippling under his skin like thick, boiling water. His heart stuttered off-beat, and he fell to the wall, muscles spasming and clenching until he thought his bones might snap. If he screamed, he couldn't hear it over the burn of electricity overwhelming his brain. Every vein and artery felt ready to burst as the current followed his blood to his fingers, and out into the castle walls. Air clouded like frost on his tongue and he moved at half speed, hands pawing at his burning chest. A starburst brand flared red between his ribs, the size of a teacup and twice as scalding.  
  
"If that's the thanks I get for saving your life, then by all means get lost." Dorian said over his shoulder, returning to his worktop and tidying up his flasks. He sighed, eager to return to his chambers and sleep.  
  
"My clothes..." he mumbled, indicating his bare chest and unprotected feet. "I can't just..."  
  
"Can't or won't?" the mage replied with a barking laugh that reddened him all the way down his neck. Dorian pulled out a woven basket from beneath his station and lifted out Cullen's criss-crossing tunic and matted furs.  
  
"Your armor has been delivered to your chambers. Although we couldn't find your shoes." he said. "You'll need another vial every twenty four hours, give or take, until we find a lasting solution."  
  
"How long until I can stop? Completely?" Cullen asked, donning his clothes.  
  
Dorian didn't answer at first, and it sent a frisson of fear straight through him. He stepped in front of Cullen and lowered the heavy mantle over his shoulders, smoothing down the wild mane with well manicured fingers.  
  
"Listen, for my part in it, I want to say I'm sorry." Dorian said, lost in thought, his hands wandering up and down the mantle like sovereign beings. Cullen thought to brush them off, but appreciated the distraction.  
  
"Is this...Will I die if I stop?"  
  
"We tried every alternative, but time ran out and...well."  
  
The hands stopped their anxious circles and rose up to his cheeks, tilted his head to a different angle. A warm thumb lifted one of his eyelids, analytical eyes searching. He grasped Dorian's forearms for the second time that night, drawing him to a halt.  
  
"What, ah...what are you doing?"  
  
The mage stiffened, awareness returning to the room, their bodies, and the moment dying between them.  
  
"Just checking." he said, backing away. "Until tomorrow."  
  
A pause, for significance, and he glided over the threshold, leaving Cullen alone. After a time, he found the strength to drag himself to his feet and back to his chambers, wishing he could leave his thoughts down here to rot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen accepts that Dorian's potion is helping, even if he hates it. Dorian opens a can of worms best left alone.

To his utter misery, Cullen felt incredible.

He was not normally an excitable man, but the return of good health after months of discomfort brought with it an insuppressible cheer banked only by his shame at having obtained it with lyrium.

Morning drills passed in the blink of an eye now that he had the energy to lead. One of the recruits slipped in the mud, and he spent an extra hour drilling stances with him, again and again until he threw Cullen to the ground. The boy looked apologetic, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he just grinned and motioned for a hand up.

When he encountered Cassandra on his way to the stairs he almost retreated, her gaze heavy with a mixture of surprise and suspicion.

“Good morning, Seeker.”

“Is it?” she replied, slashing a practice dummy with unnecessary force. 

No part of him was ready to hear her thoughts on his failure, so he took the coward’s way out and just pretended to be dreadfully late for something. He felt no shame at running the moment he was out of her sight.

The paperwork obscured his desk by the time he returned to his office, and he fantasized about shoving it off on one of his lieutenants. He only decided against it after he noticed Scout Harding’s looping signature. Her missives were as colorful and descriptive as Varric’s swashbucklers, and Cullen secretly enjoyed reading them. One particularly witty line about ‘sticking a druffalo’s horn up the Venatori’s collective arseholes’ inspired a new battle formation, which he spent his lunch fine-tuning, moving chess pieces around his board until it felt right. The feeling of effectiveness was intoxicating, and he worried, not for the first time, that he wouldn’t wish to quit if he kept feeling so well.

Fortunately, he took a turn for the worse in the afternoon. He convinced himself that the stiffness of his muscles came from sitting too long at his desk, that his headache resulted from reading without adequate light, but he couldn’t brush off the familiar ache in his stomach. It came on fast, just a matter of minutes between blissful relief and paralyzing discomfort, and he didn’t hesitate to make his excuses and go out in search of Dorian. He found the library empty, and so headed straight for the lower level.

When he arrived, he found Dorian lounging on the cot with his long legs crossed and a glass jar glowing in his lap. A potion bubbled on the table but the mage ignored it in favor of the spell he was crafting. As he drew closer, he saw a pair of moths hovering between the mage’s hands, their wings moving at half speed, like the flow of time was difficult to grasp. He spared Cullen a sideways glance, guiding the frail creatures onto the palm of his left hand. It reminded Cullen of the kind of expensive painting that an Orlesian noble might commission; a dark and sinister room housing a lone figure with gleaming eyes, lit only by his magic.

A trio of butterflies lay at the bottom of the jar, their wings dry and cracked, lifeless until pure white mana dripped from Dorian’s palm onto their fragile corpses. White light obscured them, and the mage raised his hand, fingers pinching the mana trails and pulling them up into the room. After a muttered incantation they sprang to half-life, fluttering in lazy circles around Cullen’s head. He admired their brilliant color and delicate shape even as a shiver worked its way up his spine.

“ _Mortalitasi_?”

“My favorite of the schools of magic, although my mother preferred to call it an unhealthy fixation.”

“Does it hurt them?” he asked, eyes following a verdant moth as it landed on one of Dorian’s rings.

“It depends. Insects have no conception of identity, so I doubt it troubles them.”

“But if it did…” Cullen pressed.

The mage frowned, then tilted his head toward the lyrium boiling on the table.

“Is harm a very effective deterrent, in your experience?”

“Only when it befalls those in power.”

Dorian hummed, kicking his legs to the side of the cot and allowing the momentum to lift him to his feet. He sauntered to the table, donning his protective gloves and cooling the solution until it glowed.

Lyrium gave off a distinctive scent. He remembered how it clung to his mentors as a child, how it calmed his mind and enveloped him in feelings of safety and purpose. He’d stopped noticing it after his first weeks using, as it became part of his own scent. He’d forgotten how it smelled until just now, as sweet as cut grass but with an undercurrent of rot, like air at the mouth of a cave. He wanted it badly. He would kill for it, would give up limbs to feel its power pulsing through the glass of the vial. He would conquer an army just for a taste.

“You’re early.” Dorian said.

“I…” _needed a distraction_ , “began to feel unwell.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. I took great pains to use as little lyrium as possible, so naturally the effects are short-term only.”

“And what of the long-term?”

“That’s what I aim to determine.” the mage replied, holding the vial in front of his eyes and waving it, “Drink half.”

Cullen gave him a dour look, which Dorian seemed to interpret as mutinous.

“Maker’s balls, you’ll get the rest. After.”

“This is ridiculous.” he sighed, pulling the vial from Dorian’s hands and guessing at the halfway point with the position of his fingers.

“It is an area woefully devoid of adequate study. An entire religious order relies on an unstable mineral solution-”

He stopped listening in favor of knocking back his “unstable mineral solution.” In actuality, he took a bit more than half, but it hardly mattered once it was down his throat. The fix wasn’t the same as pure lyrium, but his heart still beat like it was trying to escape his rib cage and the low light of the room turned momentarily blinding just like the real thing.

He fumbled onto Dorian’s stool, setting the vial on the table just in time to avoid dropping it when his muscles liquefied. He lived a century in the seconds that followed, mind floating and body folding forward to rest his cheek on the warm worktop with an indulgent groan. He wouldn’t ever give this up, not if he kept feeling it like this. He wanted to punch something but that would require leaving the table.

Deft hands settled on his shoulders and traveled up his neck to scratch at the stubble around his ears. His face grew warm, although from the attention or the drug he wasn’t sure. He swallowed around a lump in his throat and searched for the right thing to say, something to create distance without offending. But then the hands slid up through his hair and a shiver erased what words he had.

“Just lay there and enjoy it, would you? It doesn’t have to mean anything.” Dorian said, “I never could resist a good head of hair.”

The pass of rounded nails against his scalp soothed his nerves, and so he heeded Dorian’s words and enjoyed it. After a time he felt about as calm as he could so soon after a dose. He sat up.

“Thank you...That was, um... you're good at that.” he mumbled, resisting the urge to scratch the back of his neck. Maker knows he’d just been treated to plenty of that.

“Just the tip of the iceberg, Commander. A very large, very handsome iceberg. And now, if I’ve buttered you up enough, let’s begin.”

“What kind of experiment did you have in mind?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know if you can contain magic without lyrium powering your abilities?”

He would. In the beginning he’d intended to do just that, but as reports piled up and his symptoms got worse he’d given up. A week ago, he thought he would never again be a well person, let alone fit to fight mages. He still wasn’t sure now.

“Start with this moth, using the lyrium you’ve just taken.”

Nodding his assent, Cullen crossed the room, positioning himself opposite from Dorian. The lyrium’s power thrummed from within, and it awakened an awareness that he hadn’t felt since Kirkwall. Uttering a quiet prayer, he reached out with his energy, getting oriented with the magic flowing from Dorian’s veil.

Cullen did not consider himself talented, on the whole. He always had to struggle to learn what he knew, and he took pride in that. It had taken years to master the sword and countless repetitions to memorize the Chant, muttering the lines over and over again. His ability to see the flow of mana through a mage’s hands was the only exception, and so he found great satisfaction in it. It was no hardship to reach for the reanimated creature, to look past it and find the thread of magic that wound from its torso to Dorian’s wrist.

Although he didn't usually concern himself with appearances, Dorian’s magic waylaid him. Circle mages always held their spells on tight leashes, afraid of what might happen, but Dorian bore no such reservations. He allowed his _mortalitasi_ free range, guiding it around with generous gifts of mana. It was like discovering an owner doting on a beloved pet when he’d anticipated a tamer holding a beast.

Remembering his task, he reached out to the thread and prepared to cut. It sparkled when he drew near, slick and translucent like a spout of champagne pouring in the wrong direction. He pinched, and it felt like an ocean breeze through damask curtains, like dozing on pillows in the afternoon and sucking on candied dates. A dream, or perhaps a fantasy. It was a personal thing, the moments that lived within a mage’s mana, and he tried not to pry. With the efficiency of experience he cut the spell from its caster, smothering it in a bubble of lyrium infused prana until it starved. The moth gave a final aborted twitch and it fell, dead once more, to the floor below.

Behind it, Dorian looked caught in some manner of trance. Mages universally found his abilities distressing, and Cullen worried for him. He came to his senses a moment later, looking around the room as though it might have changed in the past few minutes.

“Once more.” the mage said, summoning another moth to their improvised practice circle. His eyes looked manic, driven, and with a flush of pride Cullen realized that Dorian found him _interesting_. The sharp, fascinated look that he’d given his _mortalitasi_ was now leveled on Cullen, and he found himself wanting to impress, to do something worthy of attention.

He reached out to the other moth and held its thread— _dark, hush, hurry, before they catch us_ —and pulled it until it snapped. It made no sound, but it felt exactly like the snapping of kindling before a fire. A shiver ran through Dorian that Cullen saw from across the room. It made him feel powerful.

“I see, so lyrium simply amplifies your personal energy to a level where you can channel it as a mage pulls mana from the Fade?”

“I think so? The Order called it prana. Life energy.”

“Hmm, and the magic fails because you force it back through the Veil with mundane energy. We’ll have to investigate that further.” Dorian said, scribbling a note.

The familiar pressure of a headache was building behind his eyes, and Cullen guessed that he’d used most of the lyrium. With a small measure of doubt, he rolled his shoulders and felt around for the thread trailing behind the last remaining moth. When he found it, the thread was so taut that he could pluck it like a lute string.

He grew alarmed as he followed the thread back to Dorian’s arm, winding around his bicep and into his mana spring at the center of his chest. Now that he understood the method, he’d instinctively covered the spell’s weak point, leaving Cullen no choice but to break the thread on Dorian’s side of the tether. It was much too close to a true  _Sil_ _ence,_ just a tiny slip of his control and Dorian would be cut off from the Fade until his mana recovered.

The brush of Cullen’s prana at his core captured Dorian’s attention, his whole body tensing and his eyes boring into Cullen’s.

“We should stop-”

“Do it.” Dorian interrupted. “I can take it.”

The mage’s intensity pushed him through his caution, his hunger igniting something warm in Cullen’s gut. Like looking over the battlements and wondering what it might feel like to jump.

He gripped the thread and focused, but no power came to pull. His feet sunk into the ground, and he fell through the spell’s core— _mother, mother look, I did it, why won’t you look?_ —and straight through the other side. Dorian’s magic propelled him through their connection and into his own well of prana with a soundless splash. Memories shot past him too fast to see. He listened, eyes closed, to his mother’s voice, and the clash of practice swords, and the echo of hushed whispers in the Circle tower. Eventually, they landed on what felt like the shrubby grass of the Hinterlands, and he opened his eyes.

The vision coalesced into his family's home in Honnleath. More a shack than a home, the whole mess leaned against the trunk of an overgrown tree with a drooping thatch roof and parchment-covered windows. Smoke rose from the cobbled chimney, and through the cracks in the sill he saw his siblings playing around the hearth. Dorian’s magic thrummed it’s frenetic energy through everything he touched.

A gap-toothed Mia leaned out the door, shoving a tray of skinned rabbits and root vegetables into his hands and pulling him to the hearth to cook. Branson sat on the base with Rosalie, and they were both so small, huddled in mended jackets and oversized sweaters. The toddler fussed and began to cry, and Cullen took her from his petrified brother. He wasn’t always a good caretaker, short-tempered and longing to play like other children, but this day was different. On this day he was taken away to training, and left without properly saying goodbye. He often dreamed of Rosalie’s cries while he slept in Kinloch, always mourned how he’d missed the chance to see her grow. So he did not hesitate now, taking her into his arms and singing her hymns that his mother always loved, swaying slightly as he walked little circles around the rug.

Dorian's magic shook the building, pulled him from it. Plates rattled in the cupboard as everything went a bit green and faded into a blurry view of his hunched form. The pressure behind Cullen's eyes grew into a full blown headache and his stomach twinged at the loss of lyrium. Dorian looked no better, shuffling backwards until he fell into the stool by the worktop.

“You pushed! Why did you push?” Cullen moaned.

“And let you traipse around in my—my whatever that was? Not a chance.”

“You pushed me into my own well!” he shouted, regretting it immediately when his head gave an angry twinge. He reached past Dorian to grab the half potion from the worktop, not caring that it put them chest to chest, and tipped it back. The second hit came more softly than the first, but just as potent, and he leaned against the table to keep from flopping into the man’s lap.

He floated for a minute or two, his head on the table and his shoulder flush with Dorian’s. The man stirred, patting him twice on the back in a pale imitation of comradery and walked to inspect the bookshelves.

“Let’s call it a night, yes? I need some time to ponder how ludicrously incorrect our understanding of magic is.”

Cullen grunted his agreement, preoccupied with the memory of his sister wailing in his arms. Their unwanted field trip into his memory wrecked them both and he took full responsibility. True, Dorian was complicit in the events leading to it, but an ex-Templar ought to know better than to play with fire.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Tip top, Commander, just picking up a some bedtime reading.”

More than some, he thought, eyeing the growing stack as it neared Dorian’s chin. He watched, bemused, until it became clear the mage couldn't carry them all by himself. Dorian placed the stack on the worktop, weighing two books against one another. Glad for the chance to make good, Cullen shuffled to Dorian’s side and picked up the hoard.

“Take them both, I’ll carry the rest.”

The man looked dumbfounded, all raised eyebrows and down-turned lips. It was a good look for him. Cullen averted his eyes.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he stuttered, “Just let me do this for you.”

His lips quirked up in a dazed sort of grin—and Cullen realized that every smile he’d seen previously had been put on. The dazzling smirks and barking laughter, the haughty poses and perfect teeth, none of it had any of the warmth in that tiny, crooked smile. This new expression was quiet, like it had been scared out of him a long time ago. It looked probably a lot like his own. Fragile. Underused. He wanted to see it again.

“Well, if you insist. Although you really ought to reign in that white knight complex of yours.” Dorian said, leading the way, “Someone’s bound to take advantage.”

“I’ve not had any takers.” Cullen said, and then winced at how pathetic it sounded. To his surprise, his companion spun around, walking backwards so that he could make a show of scanning him up and down.

“That’s shocking.” he said, and Cullen failed to find offense in his sincere tone. An unbidden laugh worked its way out of him, which probably wasn’t the response Dorian had hoped for, but there it was. It had been years since anyone had flirted with him, and it felt like a revelation.

“Sorry! Sorry—I didn’t mean-” he laughed again, embarrassed, “I just—are you sure you’re looking at me?”

“Who else?” Dorian chuckled, gesturing at the empty hall, “Come, now, surely you don’t think yourself unattractive?”

“I’ve got a scar across my face!” he objected “I hardly ever shave. Oh, and I snore something awful. Honestly, who wants to deal with all that for the rest of their life?”

Dorian’s face took on a stern look and he seemed about to say something before changing tack, putting on a particularly fake smirk.

“Oh, we’re talking lifetimes already? At least buy me dinner first.”

Maker’s balls, he really shouldn’t try to be funny. Disasterous. They walked the rest of the way in silence. To his surprise, Dorian led him past the stairs and instead turned down a corridor that ran deeper into the basement. They reached a door on the far end and the mage fished out a key from his pocket. After a few jiggling motions the latch clicked and he swept in, lighting the hearth with a careless flick of his hand.

He sat on the bed and removed his shoes, indicating that Cullen should drop his burden on the covers beside him. A motley collection of tomes and scrolls seemed to live on the side that Dorian didn't use. The bed was tucked into the base of an enormous cabinet that spanned from the floor to the ceiling of an entire wall. Its shelves were carved in the shapes of flowering branches and wild halla, all warped with damp and neglect. 

The room was large by Skyhold standards, lit by a pair of enormous stained glass chandeliers and framed on two sides by Nevarran tapestries. The shelf looked ready to collapse from the weight of Dorian’s possessions, overloaded with books, trinkets, cloaks, and animal bones. He followed the artful mess up to the ceiling, where it culminated in a cracked wooden bust of Andraste. Belatedly, he recognized the room for what it once was—a shrine, devoid of pews but with it’s altar intact.

“Maker’s breath, how do you sleep in here?”

“I rather like waking up to Andraste’s tits.” Dorian replied, sinking onto the bed and digging out a quill and ink from the alter. Reams of parchment sat under the older books, and Dorian rolled one out beside him, using books to weight the edges and hold it open. He looked to be settling in for an extended time, and Cullen regretted that his mistake would keep Dorian working through the night.

“I suppose she would be good company, for the times when you can’t help but be alone.” he mused, “Goodnight, Dorian.”

“Goodnight, Commander.” the mage muttered, already absorbed in his study, “Get some sleep.”

To his relief, he did.

He slept very well, actually, until the dreams began.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen deals with the aftermath of his withdraw episode, and Dorian gets an unexpected vacation with Cadash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trespasser gave me a lot of ideas for this story, and luckily I am still early enough in it to adjust my plans. My updates won't ever fall on a schedule, but I am like, 150% committed to seeing this through. There are so many places I want to take these two, so please stick with me! 
> 
> Thank you so much for all of your feedback. Kudos, comments, and encouragement all kept me writing at this when I really just wanted to sleep. I owe you all a huge thank you for that. Now, on to the chapter!

_Fourth bell in the Circle Tower.  A misnomer. There was no bell for the fourth bell, just the faint chime of the First Enchanter beginning the mass._

_Cullen could see it in his mind’s eye. The mages would have knelt in a circle around the altar, and the Templars at the wall behind them, all gazing dutifully to the center where Irving gave the benediction. He would join them, but he was assigned to sweep the lower floors for errant apprentices.  He didn’t remember Greagoir giving the order, but he understood his task in the way one knows things in dreams._

_The stone stairs carried the chanting from above, twisting the sound into a hollow, dead moan.  Torches cast shivering shadows on the walls that turned into sobbing faces as they came to the edge of his vision.  The sight of the first floor landing doubled his pace, and he hurried into the light of the library windows.  Someone had opened them earlier in the day, and a breeze cut through his armor to cool the sweat underneath.  Sheets of paper blew from behind a book-lined alcove, and a man shot out in pursuit.  Cullen’s foot found the papers on reflex, holding them to the floor as the mage knelt to retrieve them._

_He prepared to give a lecture, but found Dorian staring up at him—not a Circle mage at all.  He looked younger, clean shaven and dressed in apprentice robes.  His fingers were bare of his usual finery, but his eyes were still heavy with kohl._

_“Cullen-” he said, before correcting himself, “Ser Rutherford, might you lift your boot?”_

_He didn’t move, mulled over what to say._

_“You’re meant to be in mass, Pavus.”_

_“Oh?” he replied, as though this were new information. “Are you here to punish me?”_

_Cullen shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his breastplate._

_“Why would I?”_

_The words awoke something sinister in Dorian’s eyes, and he shimmied his hips until he sat more comfortably on his spread knees._

_“Well I have been a very, very bad mage.” Dorian purred, his hips canting in an unmistakable invitation. “Shouldn’t a good Templar like you put me in my place?”_

_“Oh… N-no, that would be totally inappropriate.” he replied, backing away.  The mage crawled toward him one slender leg at a time, the slits in his robes revealing mesmerizing slivers of tan skin.  Cullen kept his distance.  After a few steps didn’t deter him, he pulled the apprentice to his feet._

_“Oh, so that’s how it is? Against the wall with those big hands-”_

_His ears warmed at the implication, and he felt silly for it, tried to cover it up with rough professionalism and curt instructions.  The mage squirmed out of his hold, and it took a surprising amount of self control to let him go._

_"Well, this is a new low," Dorian sighed, visibly disappointed. "Even here you refuse me."_

_The mage ascended with heavy footsteps, and he watched, transfixed, until the dream dissolved into the black of unconsciousness._

 

* * *

 

He awoke to a hammering against the tower’s door below. Which, of course, he ignored.

Like fuck was he going to let some overeager messenger ruin his best night of sleep in months.  The knocker gave up after a minute or so and he let out the breath he’d been holding.  He really did not want to deal with anyone right now. Not with that image of Dorian burned into his mind and the bizarre way it made his gut clench. No, best to let that dragon sleep.  

He yawned, stretching out until he felt a bit more alive and flopped onto his side. He was just sinking into a doze when he heard a clawing sound echo from the roof above.  Birds.  Hopefully just birds.

“Cullen!”

Definitely not birds.

“Cullen, wake up!”

A loud groan echoed through the hole in the ceiling, and the Inquisitor slid inside to hang by the rafters. Malika Cadash was half his size, half his age, and twice the person he’d ever be.  The sunrise turned her black hair auburn, and highlighted the daring curve of her cheeks.  Blessed with open eyes and an impish smile, she gave off the kind of sunny energy that normally inspired him, but presently just made him want to push her out a window.  

She dropped onto his bed with a flourish and sat, watching him.

“You can’t go around breaking into people’s rooms.” He mumbled into his pillow.

“Then open the door next time.”

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat against the headboard.  Malika leaned in solicitously.

“Maker, but you do look better.”

“I am apparently an entirely new man, as every person in Skyhold insists on telling me. I’m going to get a complex.”

“You don’t seem very pleased about it.” She said.  It was one of her virtues, that curious ability to dig under his skin without actually prying.  Cullen picked at the frayed edges of his blanket, and debated whether he should string her along with half truths or just spill and get it over with. Talking usually helped, but feelings took on a life of their own once you let them out, and he had no faith in his ability to steer them once they were free.

Malika tugged at the laces of her arm guard, watching him with an unreadable expression.  He felt his face tighten and took care not to look at her, afraid she might take it personally.

“I am… disappointed.”

“In yourself?”

His eyes prickled and he swallowed the feeling, gritted his teeth until it went down.  At least if she were harsh he could get angry and latch onto that familiar heat. Her care flayed him.

“I can’t stop thinking-” He said, four different thoughts composing themselves at once, all racing to reach his lips before the others, “They—the Order, that is—they...”  His fingers pulled at the sides of his hair and he wasn’t sure when they’d gotten there.  He forced them into his lap, lacing them to keep his hands still. Once the words started, they seemed to multiply, pouring out all at once.

“They took so much from me, from all of us. Our vows, our faith— our whole blighted lives— and they, Maker. Do you know they blamed the madness on the tower? Said it came from the confinement, the isolation. But— but they knew! They had to know, didn't they? And we believed it, so enamoured with the lie, the lie that we were…”  

The engine of his thoughts ran out of steam.  The right word eluded him, or perhaps it didn’t exist.  What word could possibly sum up what it meant to be a Templar?  To abandon family, property, any kind of attachment, all to be used to harm and control innocent people.  To do so willingly, in the name of justice, in the name of faith, in the name of the Maker.

“Righteous?” Malika suggested. He shook his head, cut the word open and dug for the kernel of truth inside; something smaller, simpler, closer to the bone.

“Good.”

Her hand fell to his clenched knuckles and squeezed. He shook it off.

“It wasn’t your fault.” She whispered.

He tried not to laugh as he stared at his hands, shaking in a vice grip.

“It was. Lyrium did not make me torture prisoners, or hunt mages. It did not make me convict innocent people.”

He fell into his memories, ground his teeth until a stinging in his cheek brought him back with a loud _smack_.  His head swung to his shoulder, his entire face numb.

“Don’t you dare blame yourself for this.” Malika said, pointing one blunt finger inches from his nose. His first impulse was to ask if she’d really just slapped him, or something equally stupid.  What came out was worse.

“I tortured people in Kirkwall.  I didn’t care if it was right, because I enjoyed it. I chose to do it.”

“A choice anyone would have made under the circumstances.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” he accused. Throwing the covers off his lap, he stood and went for his dresser, but Cadash darted in his way.  He tried to pass, and she shoved him back with an impressive amount of force.

“I am the Herald of fucking Andraste.  I sit in a fucking dragon skull and exile anyone who looks at me sideways. If I say it wasn’t your fault, then it wasn’t.”

Her outburst did not cow him.  Part of him thrilled at the attack, seized the opportunity to slide everything under the rug and focus on the physical.  He pushed her back and she clung, using his momentum to throw him to the floor.  The loft gave an unsettling creak, and his heart jumped to his throat.

“What do you want from me?” He asked.

Her face quaked between emotions she refused to express, and finally settled on a sadness as frail as spun sugar.  Her fingers twitched, scratching at the leg of her pants where her bow usually hung.  She noticed the motion and shoved the offending hand in her pocket.  

“I want you to let me make it up to you.”

Just like that, they weren’t talking about Kirkwall anymore.  Truthfully, he didn’t think they we’re talking about him at all.

“What do you mean?”

“I should have noticed. I saw you that day, absolutely wrecked, and I didn’t think anything of it. Had to find out from Dorian hammering on my door, having a fit, telling me you’re fucking dying in the fucking basement.”

He felt ridiculously selfish, just then, because it never occurred to him how his episode might have affected the others. Kinloch taught him the guilt of the survivor, the horror of watching a friend die.  It seemed he’d inflicted that on them.  She couldn’t fight Corypheus without him, nor he without her, and when he suffered she blamed herself.  Maker, but they were a pair. He sat up and rested his wrists on his knees.

“When you told me not to take the lyrium, neither of us knew that would happen.”

“And when they ordered you to take it, you didn’t know what would happen either.” She said, and he didn’t dare dispute it, couldn’t really.  They were both right.  Or, perhaps, both wrong in congruent ways.

“This is why I don’t talk about feelings.” He said.

They shared a shaky laugh.  She offered him a hand getting up, and he took it, mildly disturbed to find that she could lift him easily.

He grabbed the first clean shirt he found in his dresser and donned it, glancing longingly at the squat jar of hair straightener that he dare not use in front of Malika.  It was hardly a secret, but that didn’t erase the little pang of shame he felt at his vanity.  He ought to be above such things, and yet he never regretted the daily ritual of taming his curls when he caught his reflection and saw a different man staring back. 

Marginally more decent, he turned back to the Inquisitor to find her looking out the window to the mountains.

“Do you, ah, need something? Or was this all according to plan?”

“Oh,” she rolled her eyes, visibly shifting topics, “Shit-cakes, this is awkward now. Basically, Hawke believes Corypheus can turn the Grey Wardens against us. I’m meeting a contact of his in Crestwood to investigate.”

Cullen ran a hand through his hair, and pictured the map on the War Table as best he could remember it.  Maker’s balls, that would be bad.  A majority of their best forces had been deployed to gather metals in the Fallow Mire, and it would take no less than two weeks to move them through Orlais, let alone to the Western Approach where their intelligence placed the majority of the Wardens.  

“Shit-cakes, indeed.”

“I’m leaving as soon as the caravan’s loaded, and I need Dorian with me.”

Cullen nodded, rubbing lightly over the sunburst burn on his chest. It was healing well, and hurt only when pressed or rubbed by heavy clothing.  The prickling murmur of pain grounded him, kept him focused on the world outside the skittering anxiety.  

“Will you be alright?” she asked.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure where they stood after last night, let alone what it would mean to change the routine they’d barely started.  A phantom craving lanced through him at the memory, but he smothered it.  He could handle his mind. His body, however, was another matter entirely.  Their experiment made one thing clear; physically, he needed lyrium.  Fighting without it, or some kind of replacement, would be suicide. They needed a solution before the next major battle, which could be any day if Hawke’s information was correct.

“That depends on Dorian.” he said noncommittally.

The first morning bell rang through the courtyard, and the castle stirred at the sound.  The first metallic clanks of practice swords echoed against the walls, and a messenger passed through his office below.  Malika patted her hip like a gable calling an end to court and swung a leg over the window sill.

“Work it out with him before we leave.  He should be at the gates bitching about nature, assuming Bull managed to drag him out of bed.”

The dwarf slid out the window and Cullen watched, bemused, as she flung herself down into the courtyard.  His knees creaked in sympathy as she landed hard on the roof of the tavern, and carried on as though she'd done nothing remarkable.

He doubted it was any hardship to wake Dorian, if the determined look on his face last night was any indication.  An old hat at working through the night, Cullen doubted the man had so much as pulled back the covers, let alone slept.  If the thought stung him with a little flare of worry, he told himself it was just friendly concern. Nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing worth mulling over.

 

* * *

 

Cullen passed the tavern at a brisk walk, shoving his shirt tails into his breeches. He wore no armor, and no cloak, just a loose white tunic with long sleeves and a slitted neck.  Only when he cleared the courtyard and the unseen eyes that watched it, did he break into a run.  The soles of his boots barely scraped the edges of the stairs as he flew down, grateful they had no laces to trip over.  He needed to speak with Dorian before he left.  

On the distant drawbridge he saw the Inquisitor’s party awaiting the loading of a caravan and he slowed to a jog.  The stone bridge was wet with morning frost, and he slid when he meant to stop.  Cadash caught him, her solid frame not budging an inch. He steadied himself against her broad shoulders, surveying the chaos.

Agents and runners darted between the carts and wagons, barking instructions and hauling crates. Cassandra perched on the gate of a chuck wagon with a whetstone, sharpening her sword. She shot him a baleful look, but made no move to interfere.  At the carriage behind her stood the Iron Bull, conversing with an unusually rumpled Dorian.  His eyes caught Cullen’s over the mage’s head, and flitted back and forth between them. He muttered something and Dorian huffed a reply, to which the Qunari’s scarred lips rose in an appraising smirk aimed at Cullen.  He wasn’t sure he cared for whatever he was saying with that look.  Bull’s booming voice had a way of carrying, and Cullen caught the end of their conversation as he approached.

“All I’m saying is, give it a shot.  Even if it goes to shit, at least you’ll know for sure.”

Dorian chewed his lip, but failed to respond in time to stop Bull from stepping aside to flirt with Cassandra.  That left him mostly alone when Cullen arrived, staring through narrowed eyes like some evil witch about to melt in the sunlight.  Everything about him looked wilted, from the shadowy stubble growing around his moustache to the wrinkled robes that he almost certainly wore yesterday.  He abandoned the temptation to ask how Dorian felt, and instead picked up the conversation where Dorian let it drop.

“Know what, for sure?”

The mage tapped the toe of one boot on the ground, and rubbed at his puffy eyes.  Cullen could have sworn he heard him groaning internally.  

“Nothing. Nothing important.” he said.  Cullen would have accepted the answer, in all honesty, but Dorian plowed on like he’d been caught in something, “Bull insists that I try Qunari cuisine before insulting it further.  I fear my perfect teeth may not survive.”

He blinked rapidly as he spoke, scratching his nose in a restless way.  The gesture pricked at a dormant part of Cullen’s mind, a sort of sense he’d developed interrogating prisoners in Kirkwall. He was lying, or at least acting like a man weaving a lie. Cullen scratched at his neck, considering that.

“Maybe he wants to share something of home, like Malika and your Tevinter wine?”

Dorian pulled a face somewhere between _You’re taking his side?_ and _How the hell do you know about the wine?_

“-And you can always spit it out when he’s not looking.” Cullen backtracked.

Dorian’s laugh was more like a very forceful exhale.

“I hadn’t pegged you for one to humor people.”

“Perhaps not naturally.” He conceded, “But a lot has changed recently.  A lot of new things I wasn’t keen on trying, but that turned out alright.  It’s good to be proven wrong, sometimes.”

“I shall take that under advisement.”

A silence descended between them, as it had before with Bull.  It awoke a subconscious kind of alarm, a niggling sense that something beyond a late night and an early morning weighed Dorian down, plagued him with uncharacteristic silence and a surly expression.  He thought it strange that the mage hadn’t yet asked about his urgent approach.

“Have you given thought to how we should handle the…” He glanced around, lowering his voice, “...the unstable mineral solution?”

“I’m not a dispensary, Commander.”

“I don’t expect you to be, but you’ll be gone at least a week. Did you find anything last night, anything that could help?”

Dorian crossed his arms, the picture of the affronted noble despite his scruffy face and mussed hair.  

“Cullen,” he said, heavy on the first syllable, crisp and harsh like an insult, ”What I saw last night is impossible.  I haven’t a clue what any of it was, or what it means, or what you expect me to do about it. None.”

“I don’t expect anything.” he repeated.

“You do!  You come down here all _how-do-you-do_ , but honestly. I am not your friend.  The only reason you are here is because you need me to fix you.” He said, crowding Cullen into the side of the wagon.  He felt the runners observing them, imagined them chanting _fight, fight, fight,_ like boys tussling in the school yard.  It gave him whiplash, like they’d been running on two parallel roads and very suddenly switched places.

“Well maybe I’d like to be?” he said.

“Oh yes, let’s alleviate your guilt. Farcical friendships are so very good for that.”

He felt like Malika had slapped him again, but it hadn't brought the same clarity as the real thing. Instead, he had only the vague impression that he'd missed something… important. Anger simmered low, but he wasn’t angry anymore.  It pushed in from the outside, like the equal opposite of true emotion.  He shook it off, filled in the spaces with genuine concern. The Inquisitor rounded the corner of the wagon, looking between them for an aborted second before stepping in to push them apart.

“What’s going on here?”

“I wish I knew.” Cullen said, pushing himself away from the cart now that Dorian no longer crowded him.

“No need to worry your pretty little head, Commander. You’ll be fit as rain. For a week, at least.” He said, snatching his staff from where it leaned against the wheel locks and stalked toward the gate. “Besides, if you need it that badly, you can bloody well stick it up your nose like all the other Templars.”

Nobody moved for a painful second, and then whispers broke through the crowd.  He felt stuck to the spot.

“I’ll talk to him.” Malika said, running ahead as drivers struck the teams and the caravan started its slow journey across the bridge. Bull just shook his head, a bit impressed by the display, and shot him a conciliatory sort of look. Cullen just stood there, wondering when he’d forgotten how to walk.  He figures it was somewhere around the time Dorian transformed from amicable acquaintance to rage demon.

“I don’t know what that was, but he didn’t mean it.” Bull said.

“I really think he did.” Cullen replied, trudging back to the courtyard with more questions than answers.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen deals with some awkward dreams while Cadash and Dorian take their sweet time getting back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, we're here! We're in the FADE. WOOOOO.
> 
> Ahem. Right.
> 
> I had way too much fun writing this, and the momentum from this chapter kept me writing straight through the next two. What a rush!
> 
> Thank you for your support. I hope you enjoy it. ^__^

If it were possible to slow time without a trace, Cullen would have sworn they'd been cursed.  

The party did not return for six days. Six interminable days that Cullen marked like a prisoner awaiting execution.

Much of his time passed entombed in the War Room, penning orders and fielding messengers, all in the hopes of wrangling their scattered forces into something remotely resembling an army.  They were, by mutual consensus, a diplomatic organization first and a military force only when necessary.  Turning a glorified honor guard into a force strong enough to beat Corypheus’ mages required every available soldier at his command. He found a center point in the Emprise du Lion, and the consolidation of forces there inadvertently caused a peasant rebellion.  It had taken considerable effort between him, Josephine, and Leliana to tamp it down, which amounted to a phenomenal waste of resources that then had to be pulled from more worthy endeavors.  Regardless, by week’s end he felt reasonably prepared for whatever news the Inquisitor might bring from Crestwood.

News that was not forthcoming.  A scout sent word when the caravan arrived at the forward camp, and reported the Inquisitor's departure into Crestwood. A four day silence followed that nourished the seed of worry in his gut into a thriving weed.  The memory of Dorian’s odd tantrum haunted him.  He dreamed every night that week, without fail, about him.

The first night, they played chess.  He wasn't even sure Dorian knew how, but his imagination didn't seem to care about reality.  They lounged on cushioned chairs as red leaves fell from above, trading boasts and colorful stories.  He did not dream often, outside of nightmares, and so the sheer detail of it, the color and the sound all stuck in his mind to reemerge at the most unexpected times.  The ivory of his quill reminded him of the carved stone rook pinched between delicate tanned fingers; the breeze through a window made whispering winds that perfectly matched Dorian’s hissing laughter. Easy smiles and friendly banter had no place in Kirkwall, and he wondered if the real Dorian gave them as generously as his dream counterpart.  

The night after marked the third in a row, and it doused whatever strange satisfaction the previous two had brought.  The air held a twilight stillness, broken by the rolling of Dorian’s wrists as he pulled apparitions from a glowing furnace.  Fire lilies grew, bloomed, and perished under the claws of a swooping dragon.  Cullen admired them as he sipped a glass of wine, beautiful and daring and created out of raw flames by Dorian’s skilled hands.

He was an artist, this Dorian, and he preened like a cat when Cullen told him so.  He wove a dove out of the dragon’s breath, and it grew larger and larger with each beat of its wings.  It engulfed Dorian, swallowed him in silvery tongues of flame, and suddenly the dream became a nightmare.  His face cracked like stone and lava poured out of his flesh. His eyes glowed orange as embers, and flames erupted over his cheeks in a parody of tears.  Sparks fell from pointed fingers, black as the Void and trailing soot when he swiped at Cullen’s face with a demonic shriek.

“ _Give it to me, Commander._ ” He chanted over and over, “ _Give me your rage._ ”

A weight fell to his hands, and he glanced down to see his father’s sword, sharp and true.  He raised it high, arms stretched above his head, no room for doubt, no room for hesitation.

“ _Give it to me, Commander_.” The demon begged. He struck, cleaving through flesh and bone and straight to the hollow maw where his heart should be.  

He woke up screaming, and did not dare sleep the following night. The fatigue caught up to him within the next day, dogging him until he requested a sleeping draught from the infirmary and fell into a hazy fog of half-awareness. He did not remember that night's dream, but caught fragments of it whenever he nodded off at his desk.  After the fifth such occurrence, he accepted defeat and retired for the night.

Distressingly, the dreams didn’t seem related to his withdrawal. Despite five days without lyrium his symptoms were gone, and that alone convinced him that something was terribly amiss. The helplessness ate at him, but he bore it.  He could not do anything without Dorian, and so he waited and hoped for a speedy return.

The vision the following night scared him more than any of the others, and for an entirely different reason. Gone were the teasing flirtations and fiery abominations, replaced with a suffocating darkness. He floated in a void, a dark world full of nothing but him and a distant figure. He tried to go to them, swimming against an unseen force, but got no closer. He called out, told them to stay calm, that they would be okay, but he knew he spoke only to himself. The force pulled him closer until he could make out the thick, dark hair, the smooth mocha skin.  Dorian’s eyes were open, but his stare held an endless nothing. He breathed, he blinked, he swallowed occasionally, but there was no life in it. Cullen stayed with him until he could not bear to be alone any longer and woke to the tangle of cold, sweaty sheets.

He raced for his prayer box and threw open the latch, whispering into Andraste’s tiny feet as he dug out his salvation, the one religion that never failed him.  It was not a craving born of the flesh. What he needed was not power, but vacancy; the cleansing fire that consumed his doubts and sent them to the Maker like the cloying smoke of incense.  Let his life be damned to failure, but he would not bring Dorian with him. He could not bear the fate of another mage he failed to protect. This was his limit.  He was half finished grinding the powder into a usable grit when the courtyard bell erupted in a rhythmless alarm.  He dropped his tools, half annoyed and half ashamed, and hastily put the mess away.

The bell tolled at night for only one person, The Herald.  His hands shook as he wrenched the tower door open.  The mountain trail froze at dusk, and only in dire circumstances would anyone risk the journey at this hour.

The night watch were not at their posts when Cullen reached the battlements, and he thought they might have shirked their duties until he spotted them in the courtyard.  They crowded around the returning party, relieving them of their loot and travelling gear.  His eyes scanned the chaos automatically, until he spotted Dorian unconscious in Iron Bull’s arms. The Qunari was visibly exhausted, but held him stubbornly above the heads of the footmen. They protested, loudly, but he shook his head and slowly climbed the stairs to the Great Hall.  Cullen ran to intercept them.

He reached the yard and spotted Cassandra leaking blood from her breastplate and rushed to take her weight from Cadash. The Seeker pushed his arm away, gasping against the pain, but he held fast, directing their steps in the direction of the infirmary.  

“Get Solas.” She hissed, clutching her side, “Nevermind me, we must get Dorian to Solas.”

“I’m not leaving you-”

“I will be fine. But Dorian’s magic is misbehaving. They may require the skills of a Templar.”

“Maker…”

“Go!” She said, limping to the open door of the infirmary and allowing a young healer to guide her inside.  

Cullen had to duck around people emerging to investigate the commotion.  Torches flickered to life as the castle awoke one window at a time, and the Great Hall filled rapidly with concerned lay people in their slippers and nightgowns.  Once through the crowd, he charged through the door at the far end, and nearly knocked Josephine to the ground.  He spat a harried apology, pausing only to help her up before running deeper into the hold.  

Frenzied voices erupted from behind the door to the rotunda, which he threw open to find Malika, Bull, and Solas on the brink of a brawl.  Dorian had been laid on a futon beneath the scaffolding, which must have sufficed as Solas’ bed.  Although he was physically unharmed, his breath came shallowly through chapped lips, and his face was frozen in a pained expression. Solas advanced on Malika like a stern teacher.

“There can be no effect without cause.  Whatever you are hiding, you must stop.  I cannot help him until I know how he came to be in this state.” Solas said.

“She isn’t lying, elf.  He got tired, and his spells started doing weird shit.  Next fight he fell, and he didn’t get up.” Bull grunted, stepping between the other two.

“Everyone calm down.” Cullen said, “We will get nowhere by arguing.”

“There has to be something we can do.” Malika said, looking between them, her gaze settling on Solas in an expectant way.  The elf pinched his nose and sighed.

“I shall locate his consciousness in the Fade and see what I can glean of his condition.  Let us hope he is more forthcoming than you, Inquisitor.” He said.  She flinched, her right hand coming to a fist, but the Tal-Vashoth held her back with an arm the size of her torso.  

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” he said with a fond glance at the resting mage.

Solas walked softly to an armchair near his desk and sat.  He ducked his head and shifted once or twice, then fell asleep with supernatural ease.

Malika took Cullen’s hand and pulled him to kneel at Dorian’s side, her thumb making slow circuits of his knuckles. Behind them, he heard Bull grumble something about checking on the Chargers, and looked in time to see him stalk off to the tavern. He longed to go with him, but leaving Malika to wait alone wasn’t really an option. He felt like someone else should be here instead of him.  Dorian wouldn’t want his sympathy, and he certainly wouldn’t want the naked intimacy of them watching over him.  He barely knew Dorian, but that much he understood.  He recognized that flinching refusal of vulnerability like he recognized his own worry lines in the mirror.  

“I should go…” he said, or meant to say had Solas not chosen that moment to awaken.   He burst from his chair with a stream of Elvhen curses.  Malika jumped to his defense without a moment’s hesitation, bless her.  He wasn’t sure what it said about him that he needed a tiny dwarf to defend his honor, but he was grateful all the same.  In mere moments Solas crossed the rotunda, and Cullen came to his feet to meet him, uncaring of the narrow finger the elf jabbed repeatedly in his chest.

“ _Ma linava_ , Templar, what have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything."

“Then how is Dorian bound to you in _sal’ hasem_?” Solas shouted.

“Dust and ash, Solas, would it kill you to speak sodding Common?!” Malika said.

Solas paced an uneasy circuit along the scaffolding, crossing his arms in a self soothing gesture, and retrieved his loose grasp on civility.  It was no secret that Malika and Solas did not get along, but Cullen prayed to whoever was listening that they could manage one conversation, for Dorian’s sake. They waited for the elf to explain himself.  

“Somehow,” he said with an accusing glance between Malika and Cullen, “The Commander is drawing mana from Dorian through a _sal’ hasem_ , a spiritual connection last used by the ancient elves.”

“...Come again?” Malika said flatly.

“This parasite is killing a mage in your service.”

He felt flush with the impulse to defend himself, but his brain stuck on the word “parasite.”  He remembered the feeling of falling and the otherworldly melody of Dorian’s magic thrumming all around him.  The way it flowed through every blade of grass beneath his feet, and shook him free of his memory.  It made a perverse kind of sense. He hadn’t tasted lyrium in nearly a week, where before he’d needed it daily. Moreover, it felt right. The words rang true in his heart without the need for logic.

“We tried something, before Crestwood, an experiment. I... don’t know how to explain it.”

“He must have impacted his magical energy and unknowingly left a signature-” Solas paused, glancing between Cullen and Malika’s blank expressions. His sigh was a whole body exercise. ”I’ll draw you a diagram.”

“Oh, thank the ancestors.” Malika said.

The elf walked to his desk and retrieved a scrap of parchment and an oily stick of blue pigment. He stepped beside Cullen and used the scaffolding to sketch two circles connected diagonally by a line.

“Dorian’s consciousness has forged a connection to yours.” He indicated the line between the circles, ”But it is half-formed. Without a reciprocal bond from you, it cannot reach equilibrium. The energy flows to you but none is returned, and so his soul starves.”

“So, if we sever this... this connection, he will recover?”

“ _Sal’ hasem_ are deeply formed. They are not meant to be removed, and doing so leaves scars on the soul which may never completely heal. I cannot speak to the effects on humans, but on a mage,” Solas sighed, and bit his lip. “It is not uncommon for the removal to cause tranquility.”

Malika and he both mouthed protests, but Solas pushed ahead.

“Alternatively, you could complete the bond and allow it to take its course.”

“I-I have to choose?”

“The _sal’ hasem_ was a mark of uncommon trust and loyalty. It is a permanent bond, for better or worse, until death.”

Oh good, Cullen thought sarcastically. Not only a mark of trust they did not share, and loyalty he hadn’t earned, but a _permanent_ one.  Solas could really use some coaching on his bedside manner, if he continued to be Skyhold’s go-to expert on spiritual mishaps.  Cullen gripped his neck with both hands.

“I cannot choose for him.” he said.

“He cannot choose for himself.” Solas replied.

Malika wrapped his elbow in a comforting grip.  He felt lost in her presence, swimming in doubt.  She met his eyes gravely, with a calm beyond her years.  

“He will resent me either way.” He told her, and she nodded, just once.

Magic filled Dorian from his very center.  It was everything to him. Any action that could change that was not a viable option.  He had no choice but to carry on and hope it would not damn them both.

“Tell me what to do.” He said to Solas, afraid to hear the answer.

“It requires the assistance of a spirit.” Solas said, ”Fortunately, one has volunteered.”

“Why would it do that?”

“From what I have gathered, it shares a special relationship with Dorian. Beyond that, I cannot say.” Solas replied, “Lie down.”

Cullen eyed the bed dubiously.  Going to the Fade to meet a spirit.  Bartering dangerous, ancient magic with that spirit, on the barest assumption of trustworthiness.  This was utter madness, and he hated that he had to go through with it. He angled himself under the platform of the scaffolding and stepped carefully over Dorian’s legs.

The futon was small, intended for a single elf rather than two fairly thick humans, and some touching was unavoidable.  Dorian lay more to the outer edge, and Cullen had to climb over him to fit.  He was willing to admit that he’d fully expected to wind up on top of Dorian at some point.  The mage could seduce a potted plant if he stared at it long enough, with a scholar’s intellect, and a wicked sense of humor to boot. And Cullen was no paragon of virtue.  He would have pursued him, once they were a bit more familiar.  It sobered him to realize how different reality could be from expectations.

Once he was settled, he rubbed at his eyes and tried to chase the lingering drowsiness of his aborted night’s sleep. Across the room, he heard Solas do the same.

“The Inquisitor will watch over our bodies.  Try not to think as you pass into the Fade.  It will be easier to rouse your consciousness if you do not dream.  I will guide the spirit to you, but from there I can offer no assistance.  The road ahead is for you to negotiate.”

Cullen nodded, and then realized Solas couldn’t see it.

“Understood.”

“Bring him back, Cullen.” Malika whispered, once again kneeling beside the bed. “I know you can.”

His throat was dry as he took in her determined face.  

“Yes, Inquisitor.” He replied, and kept his mind carefully blank as he sunk into the airy clutches of sleep.

 

* * *

 

When he opened his eyes, he fell into a blue, blue sky.  Sand scratched at his toes, thrown into the air by his kicking and glistening like precious stones.  His stomach did flip flops as the world spun wildly, and he wished for solid ground.  No sooner had he wished it then it happened.  Gravity turned and he tumbled the other way with a crash.

He landed on some sort of cliff overlooking a pastel void.  Dozens of floating islands dotted the horizon, sand pouring over the edges like dry waterfalls, two of which eclipsed the sun like shimmering curtains.  To his right, magnolia trees grew in a lush grove with a pond nestled in between.  A wolf stood in the waters, staring imperiously at him and letting out soft half-barking noises.  He took a step toward it, and it sank, rapidly, into the crystal depths.  Cullen rushed to peer into the water, but saw no sign of the creature, only the pandemonium of colliding ripples.

A shrieking howl echoed through the valley, and the wolf reappeared at the edge of the bluff.  Cullen blinked, disbelieving.  He approached it, and saw that it did not actually stand near the edge, but over it, sideways, as though gravity were optional.  It barked at him again, coaxing, like it thought he was ridiculously slow.  Then, it turned and trotted out of sight, down the underside of the platform.  

He extended his right foot cautiously over the edge, certain he was going to fall, but it stuck.  Goosebumps rose on his arms and he rubbed at them with his hands, clenching and unclenching until he felt ready to take the plunge. Over several heartbeats he lifted first his heel, his arch, and finally, painstakingly, his toes.  Air blew his hair, and his heart stopped as gravity reversed itself and he came to stand before the wolf, upside down by his previous bearings.  Maker, he’d never sleep again knowing what lay outside the bounds of his dreaming.  The wolf barked, twice, in what felt like a welcome and he felt the bizarre urge to pet it.

“Thanks for that.” He said in the breathy voice he reserved for children and animals. “I’m a bit lost here, as you can see.” He reached out to pet it, admiring its soft fur, and it disappeared.  He jumped so badly, he thought he might fall right back off the edge.  He scanned the area, but caught no sign of the creature.  From this orientation, the falling sand appeared to float upward in withering, golden spires.  The pond, from the other side, looked more like a gelatinous ooze, writhing and circling in a blue-green whirlpool that made him a bit dizzy if he watched it too long.  Little globs of water and sea foam bubbles occasionally rose from it, floating around the area like fairy lights.  Inside the pool, he could make out the distorted form of Dorian.

He floated there, naked, weightless, and curled into a ball. His hair danced in the swirling water.  Cullen automatically scanned him for injuries, although he wasn’t entirely sure if one could obtain physical injury in a Fade dream, or if those injuries carried over into the waking world.  Granted, he was currently staring at Dorian’s naked body floating in a bubble on the underside of a floating island, in a Fade projection of his mind; clearly, the rules of the waking world had no significance here and it would do no good to fret over them.  Regardless, the sight of Dorian sleeping like a baby, clouds of bubbles erupting from his nose at regular intervals, brought him some peace of mind.

Relief was fleeting, evaporating rapidly when Cullen noticed the enormous chain that stuck out from his chest. It glowed the color of Dorian’s magic, as thick as his thumb and floating around his legs. It was not connected so much as coming right out of him, skin wrapped around metal in a grotesquely arresting spectacle. He followed it with his eyes, looking in horror as it turned the murky grey of steel and snaked up to Cullen’s stomach. The bond, he realized, with a dazed frown. It entered him in much the same fashion as Dorian, and he was grateful to find that he felt no pain at the connection.

At a loss, Cullen rushed to pull Dorian from the water. His hand collided with the surface like it was glass, smooth and brittle under his fingers. He pressed, and it threatened to shatter.

“I would advise against waking him. He is in a delicate state.”

His hands fell to his side, and he glanced around to find that he was no longer alone. A woman sat at a white iron table, tall and severe with long hair and stern, glowing eyes.  A spirit?  No, _the_ spirit.

“Sit.  We have much to discuss.”

A single chair appeared across from her, as well as a tea service that would have left Josephine green with envy.  He gently pulled out the chair, a little awkward around the fragile looking porcelain. He stared at a dainty tea cup in front of his seat and gasped aloud when it sprouted a stem and rose, taller and rounder.  It wobbled slightly for a moment and the creamy ceramic chalice changed into a sturdy metal goblet.  He realized he’d frozen upright with his chair half out, and hurried to sit.  The woman seemed content to watch with a passive expression as he settled himself, blushing at his own wonder.

“Do not fret.  Curiosity begets knowledge, and there is no honor in ignorance.” she said, “Does this location please you?”

Cullen looked around, taking in the sandy spires and the dusky pink of the sky.  He caught himself rubbing his hands along his thighs anxiously, and made himself relax.

“It’s... magnificent.”

“But does it please you?”

“I suppose it does?” he offered.

“I have kept it for him.  His favorite story. A magister falls in love with his rival’s slave and creates a refuge in the Fade, a garden at the edge of everywhere, a prison where she waits for his return.”

“Then I suppose I change my mind.  I dislike any place where people are trapped.” he said, fiddling with his dainty fork and watching as it transformed into a cruder, stronger shape. “Even if it wants to please me.”

The spirit seemed satisfied with that, for some reason.  She did not smile, but her golden eyes flickered a brighter, warmer hue, and she cocked her head sideways. The move had an edge of curiosity that he decided he did not like one bit. He dodged it with the first question that came to mind.

“What connection do you have to Dorian?”

“I heard his crying.” She said, far too simply for his taste. He waved his hand, inviting her to continue, and finally outright asked when she did not understand the gesture.  It felt like talking to Cole, but with less common ground. “They were violating his dignity.  They were dishonorable. It was my duty to stop them.”

He felt himself reel back on several levels at the mention of violation. Whatever the spirit witnessed, it was no great leap to assume it had been painful. Unbidden, he imaged faceless figures attacking Dorian, swarming him with harmful intent. The garden took on a strange appearance, sand darkening to an ashy gray and leaves wilting in the space of seconds. He knew enough from his training to recognize his feelings corrupting the dream, and he forced his mind blank. After a tense moment, the darkness dissipated and he ran his fingers carefully over the links of the bond. It sent a pleasant shiver up his spine, and he lifted it gently for the spirit to see. He wasn’t here to wax poetic and eat tea and crumpets.

“This… er, this spirit bond.  I need to complete it.”

“Or sever it.”

“No, no I really can’t.” he said.

“But you have doubt.  There is no room for doubt.  It would be better to cut-”

An unsteady anger rose. He felt his fist hit the table, but none of the china shook.  It was strangely unsatisfying.

“I don’t care about what’s _best_. I care about what is _right_. Taking magic from a mage is wrong.”

“Very good, Cullen.” she whispered.

In a flash, the spirit leaned toward him, her hand coming to his stomach, just above the bond’s connection. Her eyes flashed once more in a facsimile of a smile. With just the tips of her fingers, she drew a circle into his shirt. It burnt a hole straight through, the rune searing into his skin with a blinding light. The effect was immediate, so much power flooding in so quickly that it threw him across the island.  Landing on his back, he dug his hands into the sand and slid until he collided with the pond, mere inches from Dorian’s sleeping form. The brand filled him with a peculiar stretching sensation, like an overflowing waterskin. Completely on instinct, he pushed the power into his belly, formed it into a churning ball and let it ride his blood to his hands.  

Half mad with the strain of containing it, Cullen rolled onto his front and pawed at Dorian’s strange, glassy cage.  The spirit appeared on the other side, hands stretched wide and her entire body glowing like a second sun.

“Remember this, Templar. This is what it is to love a mage.  He fills your home with music, but the Fade song will always be louder than yours.”

He couldn’t care less.  Dorian needed him, needed this strange power that flooded his every pore and dripped out his fingers. The mana smudged the cage, dripping like hot wax and forming a sticky puddle at his knees.  He beat his hands against the barrier, but it did nothing.  He couldn't get through.  

“I don’t need him to hear me, I just need him to live, damn it.” He shouted, throwing himself bodily at the bubble.  It gave a harsh cracking sound, and he heaved again, even stronger than before.  He thrilled as he felt it shatter, the water erupting in all directions and then falling rapidly upward.  The drops scattered like sparks from an anvil and haloed Dorian’s face as he continued to float.

He spared no time to think.  Digging his toes into the sand, he lunged for the mage’s long limbs and wrapped his arms around him in a tight embrace.  His hands fell on a strong spine and he flattened his palms on the smooth expanse of skin.  The magic flowed between them, around them, and expanded. It pushed them apart, farther and farther until he fell off the island in a flood of water and light.

The sun above blinded him, and he squinted, limbs flailing as he fell like a comet to soil.  He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, his vision grew dark.  Forcing his eyes open, he made himself look for any sign of Dorian on the island above.  

Sun spots danced in his eyes, obscuring everything but the brilliant, perfect gleam of two silver chains.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen and Dorian grab their respective shock blankets. Cadash gives an inspiring speech.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tag changes. Trigger warnings for mild body horror, moderate (on-going) body dysphoria, and a brief mention of unhealthy weight loss. Read carefully if these are difficult themes for you.
> 
> Thank you for continuing to read and comment. You guys are making this a really awesome experience for me. Enjoy!

Hands groped at his face, held him down, reaching and grasping and tearing him up.

“Cullen!” Cadash shouted, “Wake up. Please, you have to wake up.”

Her hands pressed on his shoulders, holding him down through his kicking and trembling. He roared like an animal and reached to push her, but stopped when he saw his hands. Inky black sludge leaked from them, long streaks crawling down his forearms and dripping to pool on the floor. He stared at them, helpless to stop the flow as more and more leaked from his palms and stained his clothes.

He wasn't on the bed anymore, head resting against hard stone and gritty dust. Solas knelt near his head, his pinched face hovering upside down. He brought his hands to Cullen’s forehead and chest, and the pressure inside him lessened. An inhuman noise escaped his mouth. Solas' summoned a rune between his hands, and a thick, potent bolt of lightning arched into the floor nearby. The sound of it aroused the primal part of Cullen, the part that warred between fighting and fleeing, and he redoubled his efforts to escape.  The elf repeated the process several times until it diffused the seething mass of energy.

Blackened tears clouded Cullen's vision and stung his eyes, and he tried to blink them away to no avail.  He wiped his eyes and found a thin layer of it covering his entire face, seeping out his pores.  Disgusting.

He felt unbalanced.  Something pulled at him, below the skin but above the bone, almost magnetic.  It wavered in intensity, but never fully disappeared, it’s weight tugging him persistently to the right. Rolling his head that way, he saw a thread of magic weave its way across the room. It stretched directly through every object and person in the way, plunging like an arrow straight into Dorian’s chest. It was ugly and lopsided, one strand a thick golden rope, the other black and frail as a spider’s web.

He covered the distance in record time, and cared little for the undignified flailing of his limbs as they slid through puddles of wasted mana.  His hands took on a layer of ooze without Solas there to regulate it, and he cupped them together.  Mana pooled in them, too quickly for his comfort, and he clutched with all his might, hovering them above Dorian’s dry, cracked lips.  Drops slipped through his fingers, landing gracelessly on the mage’s face, and he tried to aim them for his open mouth.  He hadn’t the slightest idea what he was doing, or if it would help, but something like animal instinct propelled him.

He vaguely registered Malika and Solas coming to his side, and he growled out a warning.  This was too precious, too important for interruption. He needed to concentrate.  Mustn’t waste, mustn’t waste, he’d let enough spill already.

Drops fell onto parched lips and Dorian unconsciously licked them up.  Cullen’s whole body shook in relief, and he moved his hands closer.  The minutes stretched, slowed down to the torturous moments between one drop and the next. After a time his lips were wet with mana, and Dorian drew in a deep groaning breath that Malika answered with a loud sound of relief.  The mage winced, turning his head from the light and hissing in pain. It was a vague noise, but Cullen knew it to be pain because he felt it as well.  It pressed in on him from the outside, like the anger from their argument, and all at once a lot of pieces clicked into place; the bizarre dreams and the press of feelings that weren’t his. Dorian's scathing rejection on the bridge; _If_ _you need it that badly stick it up your nose_. Had he known the whole time?

The implications of that were still buzzing around his mind when the press of lips to his knuckles utterly derailed him.  Dorian arched off the mattress, his warm, full lips parting to suck hungrily at the gaps between Cullen’s fingers.  Greedily, he gulped down mana, groaning at the taste and doubling his efforts.  Cullen stifled a noise of his own, panting through an unmistakable rush of arousal, and pulled his hands out of reach.  

Dorian let out a displeased noise, a prick of rejection running down the bond and Cullen rushed to soothe it.  He loosening his grip, turning the intermittent drip into a steady trickle that Dorian swallowed with subdued appreciation.  His whole face softened in contentment, and it filled Cullen with a suffocating intimacy that made his skin feel a size too tight. His coloring returned to normal, almost glowing with renewed life.

When Dorian had enough, he turned his head away, humming low in his throat.  A drop fell on his cheek and he flinched, his nose wrinkling as it made a wet stripe down his jaw.  Cullen wanted to wipe it away, but his hands were just as filthy and he had to settle for awkwardly rubbing at it with his elbow.  He met the man's gaze and laughed softly, partially at himself and partially at the utter strangeness of the whole situation. Dorian answered it with an airy chuckle of his own, eyes flashing in a filthy joke as he rubbed the lingering wetness from his chin. Cullen watched him blink slowly, his tongue gliding along his teeth beneath full, swollen lips.

“Water?” Dorian croaked, eyes darting to their stunned audience.

“Just a minute." He watched Malika dart across the room to a tea pot Solas indicated with a pointed finger.  Heat crawled up Cullen's neck all the way to his ears, and he resisted the urge to rub his neck only because he hands were still slimy.  He’d completely forgotten they weren’t alone, a fact which Solas looked ridiculously smug about. Well, bully for him.

Malika pressed a mug into his hands, and he sipped at it half-heartedly with muttered appreciation.  The tea was warm, but not scalding, and it liquified the sludge on his hands.  He had to hold the cup by the little rounded handle to avoid dropping it, and he shook so badly that it created ripples in the surface.  It reminded him of the whirlpool, and Dorian drifting helpless inside.  Cullen watched him, propped up on pillows, sipping from a cup Malika held to his lips, and felt a powerful swell of relief.

Mana still leaked steadily out his fingers. The longer it continued the more alarming it became, and he worried what would happen if he couldn’t stop it. He imagined living in a pool of his own refuse like the corpses at the bottom of the Fallow Mire. Horrified, he pressed his palms tight against the mug and sighed, unsurprised, when the pressure sent the goo squeezing out the sides rather than stopping it.  At least the flow had lessened, concentrating on his hands rather than bursting from every available pore.  That didn’t make it any less disturbing, and it did nothing to quiet the roar of disgust and wrongness that he felt every time he caught sight of it.  The world rocked slightly, and he realized he was breathing much too fast.

Warm, dry hands came over his, prying his fingers from the mug and setting it aside.  Solas ran a steaming white rag over first his left hand, then his right, and laid them neatly on Cullen’s crossed legs.  He folded it in half, trapping the grime and using the clean underside to wipe his forehead and scrub at his stubble.  Cullen opened his mouth to speak, but Solas shot him a glare and he accepted the care for what it was.  

Already, his hands were damp with fresh discharge, and he flinched, staring at the ceiling. Cloth surrounded his fingers, and he watched Solas’ hand go in and out of his vision, winding long strips of gauze around each of his own.  It felt odd, but pleasantly dry, and he studied the elf’s handiwork with some hesitation.  Each hand was neatly wrapped, firm enough to stay but not too tight to move. He flexed experimentally, and felt it absorb the wetness. It helped. The crisp sterility of the dressing made it feel like a normal injury, something routine and temporary that would take care of itself in time.

Behind him he heard Malika move from nurturing to lecturing, extorting insincere promises out of Dorian, who listened and nodded and said all the right words but wasn’t really paying any attention. The bond fell limply down his chest and looped around his wrist, where he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.  To anyone else, it would look like he was toying with a wrinkle in the bed sheets, and he wondered of Dorian even knew he was doing it, if he could see it at all.  Looking closer, Cullen could see tiny beads of energy flitting through the rope-like tether.  He felt each one reach him, a little drop of thought or feeling that overwhelmed his own until the next one came.  It was exhausting, and left him unable to distinguish his emotions from those he was being made to feel. They changed from moment to moment, a tiresome fugue of guilt and fear and frustration. It all coalesced into a consuming fury that burned with every well meant word from Malika's mouth.

“Are you quite done, Inquisitor?” he snapped, surprising himself.  And everyone else, if their reactions were anything to go by. Dorian’s eyes bored into his, curious and confused until they weren’t.  He felt as much as saw the spark of realization across his face, and the wash of naked horror that followed it, as he worked out how Cullen had snatched the words from his mouth.  He braced himself, and was grateful for it when the storm came, wave after wave of understanding flowing freely from Dorian only to rebound along the bond, louder and stronger.  Even that was nothing compared to the gnawing fear that he generated next, brash and so, so loud.  There was nothing he could do to ignore it or brush it aside, he just had to weather it. He brought his wrapped hands up to his ears, knowing it would do nothing to quiet a sound that only existed in his head.

His own frustration echoed across the bond and back around, colliding with Dorian’s fear.  He felt guilty for the mistake, and then angry when that guilt was pulled along the bond with everything else.  Energy rocketed faster and faster as Dorian threw his own feelings into the mix until there was a torrent rolling between them. He yelped, and Cullen watched helplessly as the mage crossed his arms and buried his head in his elbows, sparks shooting out of his hands.  A spell awoke, and the bond slowed to a stop. Sickeningly, like bone rubbing against bone, he felt the flow reverse, both sides sluicing to Dorian as he pulled the mana to his hands.

The spell hollowed Dorian out, and he soaked up Cullen’s energy to replace it. The emptiness blanketed everything in a bone-deep quiet, the noise and the feeling all bundled up in an enormous array that sprang between Dorian’s hands.  The bond imploded, blowing up some barrier inside of him that he hadn’t known was there, behind which lay an unbelievable amount of power.  He felt an answering echo of a similar gateway opening in Dorian, and suddenly they were drowning.  Mana flooded back into them, and he vaguely registered Solas and Malika shouting.

“How do I close it?” Cullen yelled to anyone who was listening.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” Malika chanted, backing away from the enormous orb of lightning.  Solas approached Dorian but Cullen knew he wasn’t the real danger.  He closed his gateway, but Cullen was helpless to stop the power flowing through him and straight into the spell.  It grew larger and larger until it enveloped the first layer of scaffolding.

He felt Dorian’s control waver, just for a moment, and his stomach dropped. The mage panted under the weight of the spell, his muscles flexing with the physical effort of containing it, eyes fixed in fearful wonder.  Cullen ducked between his arms and legs, holding a hand in front of his face to warn him before he brought it down on his shoulder. Dorian risked a glance, and he seized the moment.

“I can’t close it, you have to close it.”

“I can’t.“ the mage bit out, and the storming mass twitched threateningly upward before he reeled it back.  This close, he could feel Dorian’s tethers stretched to the point of breaking.  He reached experimentally for them and pulled the energy back, wrenching it through Dorian and into him.  The mage shivered, almost lost control again, and then pulled as well.  It was like holding a rope attached to a bucking ox, the magic rolling wild and destructive within them.  The feeling of it collecting inside almost made him black out.  He collapsed onto Dorian’s chest, his chin digging into the other man’s shoulder, and held on for dear life.  The power rolled, and Dorian pushed it back, cursing in his mother tongue as the spell shrunk to a more normal size and he set it free.  

It tore straight through the scaffolding and blew a hole through the rookery.  Dust and debris rained down, and Cullen threw himself and Dorian away as the scaffolding collapsed.  Three layers of wood, metal, and paint fell in a heap beside them.  He covered Dorian with his body, arms braced on either side of his head and hovering there as the rookery ceiling came down with a wooden groan.  The remaining magic poured out as Dorian cast a barrier around them just in time for it to block a falling beam.  It slid down the side of the dome, twice their size and heavy enough to crack the castle’s foundation with a deafening boom.

Ravens squawked loudly overhead, feathers and straw falling from their cages, and Cullen let himself relax. He rolled to lay beside Dorian and the mage flopped a hand on his chest, groping around until he found the rune-shaped brand hidden by Cullen’s nightshirt.

“It’s right here.” He panted, patting the spot for emphasis, “That’s your Veil. Picture a water pump, that’s what I do.  Just picture a spout, and imagine yourself turning it off.”

“Okay.” Cullen said, “Okay, I’m doing it.”

Dorian nodded, staring at nothing with sweat dripping down his temple.

“That’s good.” He encouraged breathlessly, “Very good. Now do me a favor and never open it again.”

Cullen nodded, eyes wide with the realization that they were both still alive.

“I think I can manage that."

The barrier broke apart above them, granting them a view through all three levels of the building and up into the star dotted sky.  It was almost romantic, if he excluded everything else about the scene. He'd chuckle at the irony, if he could only catch his breath.

“Are you two love birds quite finished blowing up my castle?” Malika demanded, kicking a beam across the floor so that she could climb out from under the desk. 

“It is not yours.” Solas said from within his own barrier, “Although I must agree that it is immeasurably more useful with its roof intact.”

A door burst open before either of them could respond, and a crowd of people piled into the destroyed rotunda. Apostates poured in from the tower, gaping openly at the fractured ceiling.  Then the shouting began. Various people all tried to take charge at once as they rushed to brace the ceiling with pillars of ice.  A pair of medics with bloodied hands descended on him and Dorian, poking and examining with brusque efficiency.  

“We’re all okay.” Malika said, but went mostly unheard over the percussive cacophony of the night guard rushing the doors, weapons drawn and clearly expecting some kind of ambush.  Cullen brushed off his medic and stood to intercept them before the idiots hurt anyone.  Most of them paused at the sight of him, but he had to unseat one particularly spooked recruit when he nearly ran his blade into half the Inner Circle as they slipped in from the Great Hall.

“Everybody calm your tits!” Malika shouted from atop Solas’ desk, “It’s fine. We’re all fine.  No Corypheus here.  So unless you’re on the War Council, on the floor, or holding up the roof, go the fuck to sleep.”

Nobody moved for a tense moment, out of deference most likely, but it only irritated the Inquisitor further.

“Go on, scram!” she said, and they scattered like ants in the rain.

Leliana called, leaning over the balcony in a handsome nug print nightshirt.

“What’s the damage, Spymaster?” Malika shouted back.

“A few singed wings, nothing more.  Master Pavus has excellent aim.”

Malika nodded, hopping down from the desk to shoot a string of instructions at the huddle of mages arguing over the piles of debris.  The roof seemed sturdy enough to Cullen, but he guessed from the amount of impassioned finger pointing that looks were deceiving. No one said much while she mediated, and the silence struck him as odd.  Dorian never let a compliment go unrebutted.

To his side, he found only empty space.  A smear ran through the mana puddle, beside a trail of drying footprints.  He followed them to one of the stairway doors, out of which Leliana stepped.  She eyed him for a moment, then turned her attention to Cadash.

“Shall we call a War Council?” she asked, damn her.  Of course the Inquisitor brought news from Crestwood, but he worried for Dorian.  The footprints taunted him from the stairway door, a trail going cold every second.  Why would he run off when he clearly needed medical attention? Leliana and Malika stared at him, and he realized he’d lost the thread of the conversation.

“Cullen? Are you fit to serve?” Malika asked, or more likely, repeated.

He was tired, but that was a given these days.  His clothes were ruined, and he needed a shower to wash off the slime.  Physically he was unharmed, but internally he felt carved out.  Were they living in happier times, a life-altering walk through the Fade would warrant some time off, but this was no ordinary time. Even if they could afford it, he probably wouldn't.  Relaxation allowed one far too much time to think. He straightened the collar of his soiled sleepwear and offered her a lazy salute, earning a few muffled snickers from Varric and Sera.

“At your service, Inquisitor.”

“Then all of you put some sodding pants on and meet me in the War Room.”

The Inner Circle answered with a chorus of confirmations, most grumbling to one another as they headed for their chambers.

“Double time, people, come on.  There’s a war going on, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Malika said, clapping her hands behind the stragglers backs like a rancher herding cattle.

“A war on sleep, yeah!” Sera groused, snorting as she slapped Cadash’s ass and made her escape.

“Yeah, yeah.” Malika sighed once everyone left.  She looked exhausted.

“Wash up?” Cullen offered, as much out of need as compassion. Like most amenities in Skyhold, the communal washroom had its quirks.  Most notably, the ancient taps which were clogged with calcium and had to be operated by manual pumps in the next room. In order to get clean without running naked between the two rooms, one needed what the residents of Skyhold dubiously called a “bath mate.”

The weeks following that particular repair had been some of the worst in recent memory.  The first week alone saw a half dozen pointless altercations that every other adviser denied jurisdiction of until it fell to him to sort out.  He’d been ready to shove his head in his desk drawer by the time he’d finished reading the eighth testimony that basically amounted to _I thought we were bath mates, but then guess who I saw pumping for that slut from the armory_.  Malika nodded gratefully and lead the way to the lower floor.

The wash room was empty when they arrived, a perk of the party’s midnight return.  It was a practical affair, sterling spouts stuck from the wall with wooden dividers between and curtains across the openings made from whatever mismatched scraps had survived Haven.  A wooden plank sat across a pair of petrified stumps to form a bench down the center, and a line of cracked basins were carved into the opposite wall.   The floor hadn’t been level in a century or two, and so the sinks sat above a perpetual puddle of rather vile runoff.  He tip-toed around it, intent on giving Malika the first wash, but she side-stepped him and slid through the hole in the wall that lead to the pump room.  

“It’s warmer if you go second.” she said, “Gets your blood going.”

That was the thinnest excuse he’d ever heard, but he took it gratefully.  After a token protest he rummaged through the bins of uniform shirts and breeches until he found his sizes and chose a stall at random.

“Number four, Malika.” he called, puzzling over the message hastily scratched underneath the painted numeral. If he squinted, he could make out a rather uneven pair of breasts and what he assumed to be the word “tits.”

Making a mental note to have the stalls repainted, he drew the curtain closed and threw his fresh clothes on the wall hooks.  Frigid water pounded on his back and he jumped. The other quirk of the baths, which he always seemed to forget until he was standing in it, was that mountain spring water only came in two temperatures; cold, and potentially life threatening.  As quickly as possible, he tugged of his soggy clothes and underwear until he was down to the bandages.  He hesitated, worrying at the pin that held the right wrap in place.

“Make it quick, Blondie, or I’m gonna fall asleep on you.”

“Alright, alright.” he replied, pulling out the clip.  Better to deal with temporary discomfort now than freeze his fingers off wearing wet bandages all day.  He’d have to requisition some spares, if this was to be the new normal.  The word felt like an insult.  Normal, the opposite of strange.  A formerly harmless word that now turned his stomach.  He struck it from his vocabulary.

He watched water fall from the tap as he shucked the bandages and thrust his hands under it. Reaching blindly, he found the leg of his soiled pants and scrubbed. Most of the muck dissolved, but the dryer parts stuck stubbornly to the webbing between his fingers. He scratched at them, prying up scab-like chunks and grimacing when he felt them wedge underneath his fingernails.  The sensation sent shivers up his spine that had nothing to do with temperature.  Picking them out proved impossible without looking, and he braced himself.

The sight of his skin, stained a patchy grey and rubbed raw renewed his efforts.  It was unnatural.  He was a Templar, a soldier, he shouldn’t have mana dripping from his hands, smeared down his arms like Harrowed blood.  Mage blood.  It wasn’t any different, he realized. No difference inherent in the flesh made one person free and the other a slave to the Chantry.  Just a bloody Veil, a hole the Fade dumped mana through and expected you to catch it.  Punished you with vile emissions if you didn't use it.  Or did it?  Did mages experience this, or was it just him? 

His hand fell to his stomach, where a tangled rune scarred his skin, exactly where the spirit had touched him and just above where he’d find the bond if he cared to see it.  If the Veil made the mage, then was he a mage now?  Physically, he supposed he was, or at the very least he bore the same risk of abomination. Where he’d previously taken every precaution to avoid looking, he couldn’t tear his eyes away now.  The mark was disturbing, dug into his skin like a deep wound stitched together and healed.  The skin felt wrong, hairless and inhumanly tough.  Water dripped around it, as though repelled by its ugliness.  He registered Malika’s voice, and found that the water had slowed to a steady drip.

“What?” he asked.

“I said, are you decent? Sod it, I’m coming in.”

Scrambling to cover himself, he nearly fell on his ass when his wet foot tangled in the leg of the dry breeches. By the time he fastened the ties the hems were half soaked from the floor, but he didn't care. He felt like a creepy old man standing wet and half naked in front of a girl barely old enough to drink, but Malika overrode his thoughts with the naive confidence of youth.

“Alright?” she said, eyeing his raw palms but keeping her hands to herself. He might have set a new record for dressing, eager as he was to escape her scrutiny.  He paced to the mirror to sort out his hair.  Poor planning, since the mirror made it impossible not to look at his hands.  Slamming his eyes shut, he shoved the shameful things in his pockets.  Malika moved quietly around the room, selecting fresh clothes of her own and moving his soiled ones to the laundry cart.  

After a minute he felt more or less under control, and the whisper of fabric on stone brought him back to the world. The bandages sat in a pile on the sink, clean but for the few inches that touched his hands earlier.  He folded over the edges and attempted to mimic Solas’ handiwork.  It was harder than it looked, wanting to crawl too high up his arm at first, and then puckering uncomfortably when he tried to re-position it.  Eventually, he gave up and attempted the other side, which went even worse without the use of his dominant hand. Ugly as sin, but better than the alternative.  

He nodded at Malika and shuffled into the pump room to draw a much deserved shower for her.  He felt terrible, taking so long.  Pumping was hard work, and he’d wasted her efforts staring at his own skin.  Previously hidden behind the spouts but now accessible through a blown out wall, the pump room was more of a very deep closet than an actual chamber.  Shiny new spouts stuck out from the decrepit pipes, each with a number corresponding to the stalls.  He made his way to number four, where someone had dragged a stone block for a seat.  Making himself comfortable,  he adjusted the bandages to protect his hands from blisters, and started pulling water.  Malika shrieked on the other side of the wall, loud and girlish like the teenager she was.

“Fuck, warn me next time! It’s freezing.” she giggled.  He couldn’t help laughing back, pushing the lever harder to douse her again.

“I thought it was warmer if you went second?”

“Asshole!”

He chuckled low and set up a steady pace, fast enough to give her adequate pressure but slow enough for him to maintain for as long as she needed. There was a particular timing to it, a tuneless beat that he found calming.  Inhale, pull, exhale, push. Up and down, the same every time. The even strokes of the lever lulled him into an even keel, as close to meditating as he ever got.  He scarcely noticed when another pair of bathers entered, one of them pumping a quick shower behind his back and then stepping out only a few minutes later. Malika was infamous for her long showers, and though it only felt like a few minutes, Cullen knew when the Inquisitor called for him to stop that he’d probably worked much longer.

Feeling settled with muscles pleasantly loose, he met her around the corner.  She was visibly refreshed, if a bit pink around the ears, and the sight pleased him. He ruffled her wet hair, teasing.

“We’ll have to get the Lady Ambassador to braid your hair again.”

She blushed fiercely, swatting his hand away.

"I can do it myself."

"But you would rather she do it."

Something moved in the room behind her, and he missed whatever she said in response.

Iron Bull stood, head bent to accommodate the low ceiling, next to the seated figure of Dorian.  The mage shivered violently under the towel Bull pulled over his head.  Cullen could make out every bone in his back, from the arcs of his ribs to the jutting knobs of his spine.  His shoulder blades stuck out like clipped wings, water droplets trailing down the peaks.  Dorian was not shy about his body, and could often be seen practicing shirtless in the yard on warmer days. This was not how he’d looked just a few weeks ago, sunny and strong from Cullen’s office window.  He realized this was his doing, the natural result of him draining the life from Dorian for over a week.  

He saw the moment his thoughts reached Dorian, his shoulders stiffening and the joints in his fingers cracking as they clenched.

“Cullen?” Malika said, waving a hand in front of him, but he had eyes only for Dorian. The man stared him down with his jaw stuck out, eyes cold and hollow like a refugee. A survivor. They all had the same eyes; empty, like they’d left their soul on a distant shore. He'd seen enough of them to know.

Bull broke their gaze, pulling the towel gently over Dorian’s face on the pretense of drying his crown. He shook his head very deliberately, horns making the small motion much larger. _Not today_ , they seemed to say, _not yet_.

Cullen relented, fussing with his bandages as he led Malika out.  He busied himself with preparations for the War Council, ignoring the explosion of relief and gratitude that Dorian felt as the door slammed shut behind him. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hark, an update!
> 
> The squad prepares for Adamant while Cullen has some revelations about Dorian, the bond, and what he really wants.

“Then, we rendezvous with Cullen and the Orlesians and kick the Venatori out of Griffon Wing Keep.” Malika said, stabbing her dagger into the War Table and knocking over all the surrounding figurines.  Unbothered by the chaos, she extended her arm and swept the whole lot across the Western Approach to rest over the gaping hole where a silver dot once marked the keep. “We can set up mission command and stick it to the Imperium all in one go.  What do you think?”

She glanced around the room expectantly, a feral grin spread across her face like the mabari that got the quail.

“I must protest, Inquisitor. To risk the lives of our soldiers on a secondary objective would be most reckless.” the Ambassador said, the firm words softened by her lilting accent.

“And leaving the Venatori to cool their heels in a cozy little fort is better?” Malika asked, her hand flying back to smooth her hair in irritation.  Josephine shifted from one foot to the other, pen tapping against her tablet.

“I don’t want to risk casualties before facing a demon army.” she said.

The Inner Circle huddled around the room, nodding and whispering but none came to her aid. War meetings did not ordinarily involve such a committee, but this was a special circumstance. With the notable exceptions of Cassandra and Dorian, the entire squad turned up to discuss the oncoming march. Varric, Blackwall, and Sera stood behind him, popping out off-color jokes at regular intervals to the staunch disapproval of their neighbors Vivienne and Solas.  Across the table, Morrigan looked thoroughly distracted by something Cole whispered in her ear. Iron Bull was no help either, looming behind Leliana in a vacant haze, stupid with exhaustion the way all men became after running on fear and fumes for much too long.

The Qunari had arrived well after the meeting began and offered no excuses, but Cullen assumed he’d been attending to Dorian. Beneath his skin, the strange pressure still pushed out to the mage like a compass pointing north. The sensation changed from minute to minute, first pulling at his right arm and then moving to his back.  Never settling, it skittered around just enough to break his concentration. He’d scarcely followed the conversation until the pressure settled into his ribs and moved no more. Perhaps later Dorian’s rejection would sting, but with the rowdy mage washed and put to bed, Cullen could focus again and for that he was grateful.

Lower Thedas lay before him, peppered with brass figures and onyx towers.  They represented hundreds of choices, any one of which might sway the balance between victory and ruin.  Moreover, they represented people, thousands of people who entrusted their fragile lives to this cause.  The council had argued for hours, shoving them about the map like chess pieces, but this was no game.  If he made a poor choice, he wouldn’t get a second chance.

Josephine sighed once more as she turned back to the Inquisitor, and Cullen sympathized.  They meant to help, but the extra eyes in the room only increased the stress.  The crowd hovering at the walls made the table feel like a stage, and he the awkward performer who’d forgotten his lines.

“I agree it’s not ideal-” he began.

“Traitor.” Malika muttered.

“But,” he continued, pausing for emphasis, ”We don’t know how many Wardens answered the call. If the worst should happen, we may need a defensible position to retreat to.”

“We cannot expect our allies to spill their blood to claim a fortress for the Inquisition.” Josephine said.

“Then what good are they?” Malika protested.

“They recognize us as a legitimate organization, which is more than can be said of half the nations in Thedas!” the Ambassador replied, snapping her tablet against the table, “You expect our allies to be as rash and bloodthirsty as you, Inquisitor, and it does you no credit.”

Malika’s face fell as all the eyes in the room shot between her and Josephine  Her breaths came quick and loud in the tense silence.  He thought he ought to defend her, but knew she wouldn’t appreciate him speaking for her.  He’d done so before to disastrous effect.  The Herald gripped the table, scowling as she contained her emotions.

“You’re right.  Of course.  We can’t risk an alliance on one fort.” she said, shoving back her hair again, searching the map for a solution.

“I can have my spies investigate.  Perhaps we can take the keep without a direct assault?” Leliana suggested.  Malika took a deep breath and forced a smile.

“Excellent idea.  We can decide once we know what we’re up against.”

“Our forces have congregated in the Exalted Plains.” Cullen said, “If the  _chevaliers_  can meet us, then I can have an army in the Approach in four or five days.”

“I will pass the message to the Orlesian command.” Josephine said, gently but with no trace of apology.

Malika nodded her approval and turned to address her companions. Energy whipped through the room, everyone straightening their posture and listening with renewed attentiveness as they realized they would soon be dismissed.

“Blackwall, Vivienne, and Sera, you’re with me. I know it’s unusual, but Dorian and Cassandra are injured, Varric should be with Hawke, and I’d like Bull to lead the Chargers.”

“We all must do our part, darling.” Vivienne said, eyeing the other two, “Even if that part smells like a barn.”

“Now, Madam, I won’t stand for you talking about Sera that way.” Blackwall joked, as the elf in question slapped him on the back.

“She can say whatever, s’long as she don’t mind being piss full of arrows.”

“We leave at midday.” Malika said over the ruckus, “So you better get packing.”

The room cleared, everyone rushing to prepare for a long campaign, but he stayed behind.  Going over the march once more, he smoothed out the wrinkles in the map and set the fallen figures upright.  His own piece sat in the center, over Skyhold, and he had to lean forward to reach it.  The motion made the bond’s pull move, the pressure sliding squarely onto his arse.  The sensation startled him and he scrambled to stand straight, dropping the bronze figure with a metallic thunk.  Someone chuckled from the doorway where he found Solas watching him.  He flushed, moving pieces at random and hoping the elf might overlook it.  Luck, as ever, was not on his side.

“Something bothering you, Commander?”

Cullen realized he’d moved the same figure three times.  He pressed his palms to the table.

“Did you need something?” He asked, clinging to the familiar foothold of professionalism.

“Given recent events, I thought it prudent to follow your progress.”

“Er, thanks, but I don’t require looking after.”

“Do not mistake my supervision for care. I don’t want to be accountable if you or your bondmate fail to thrive.”

Compassion always made him feel indebted, and he much preferred mutual self-interest. Knowing Solas’ efforts stopped short of true caring made it easier to tell the truth.

“I’m fine.” he said automatically, then reconsidered. “I’ve been worse.”

Solas remained unmoved, and Cullen allowed himself a moment to wonder if the elf had gone bald simply because his hair tired of the constant disapproval. He scratched at the woven texture of the map, fingers determined to fuss with whatever lay in reach.

“There is something bothering me… a tingling kind of—forgive me, it’s hard to explain. The trouble is, it moves when Dorian does, and if I’m going the other way it gets stronger.” Cullen said, each word a struggle. Solas studied him.

“Bonds require harmony.  If the anchors are dissonant, it draws them closer.”

“Closer. As in physically or… metaphorically?”

“It’s nothing to do with sex, Ser Rutherford, if I am interpreting your vagueness correctly.”

“Thank the Maker.” Cullen said, so relieved he might have fainted.

“You humans are bothered by the strangest things. It’s natural to be attracted to one’s bonded.”

Cullen couldn’t understand how other people talked about these things.  Sex didn’t make him uncomfortable, quite the opposite, but talking about it hadn’t been tolerated in Chantry walls.

“I’m sure it is.” he stuttered, ”But I’m no good for that, so let’s hope it’s a matter of proximity.”

“In that case, you must speak with the Inquisitor. She intends to leave Dorian here.”

“Are you saying he has to come with me?”

“I am strongly advising,” Solas corrected, reaching to grab Cullen’s toppled figure and setting it over the Frostback Gorge, “That you pay attention to your bond’s needs, and that you take fulfilling them seriously.”

He recognized the threat. Pushing himself up from the table, he rested his hand on the pommel of his blade. Meredith often used the gesture to frighten witnesses. As mad as she became, he was not above using her methods.

“I will do whatever I think best.”

“Acceptable.” Solas said, and left without fanfare.

He knew Solas spoke the truth. He and Dorian were a stiff breeze from imploding into a pair of comically tangled abominations. They’d never survive if they didn’t get themselves under control. But the idea of Dorian travelling again so soon made him uneasy.  He needed to speak with the mage first, just to check.

The thought had him striding down the corridor with such energy that he almost missed Hawke, hidden behind a column and several piles of rubble. He raised his hand to greet the Champion, but stopped when he noticed a second man standing beside him. They stood close, arms wrapped around one another in what could only be an intimate embrace.  Not wanting to disturb them, Cullen threw himself back to hide on the other side of the column.  Thank the Maker, but he wasn’t wearing his armor, and so he moved quietly.  He held there for a tense second, listening.

“A fucking note.” a low, rough voice whispered. He tried to place it, recalling the brief glance he’d stolen.  Dark skin, light hair, and the rounded out vowels of the crisp Tevinter accent.

“I forgot how sexy you are when you’re angry. I have to say, Fen, it’s really doing it for me,” Hawke said, and Cullen’s eyes must have been the size of wagon wheels. _Fen_ …Fenris, of course, the tattooed elf. The escaped slave whom Hawke bribed the Chantry to overlook. Maker’s balls. Had they always had that sort of relationship? Digging around through his jumbled memories of Kirkwall, he searched for some clue, some hint he missed.  But damn, he must have looked a fool.

A muffled groan brought him back from his fugue, awareness slamming back as the stone pillar shook with the force of a body being shoved onto the other side. The unmistakable sound of lips leaving lips echoed down the corridor, and he covered his mouth with his hand to keep from making noise.

“You won’t flirt your way out of this. Not this time.” Fenris growled.

“Challenge accepted.”

Another quiver of the column, and Cullen knew it was time to go.  Past time. The problem was, the lovers blocked the only exit, unless he counted the hole in the wall. Maker preserve him.

“I’m not joking, Garrett. You gave me your word-”

“I’m sorry.” Hawke whispered, breathy like an oath, and Cullen’s stomach clenched. They spoke with such intensity, bare words without a trace of pretense. He’d never heard a voice sound like that before, and even as he wished to escape, a part of him hung on every syllable with uncoiling fascination.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You left me.”

“I did. But you didn’t trust me to come back, did you? Let me explain, you owe it to me.”

“You’re leaving me and I don’t trust you. This is a farce.” Fenris growled, and out from the corner shot something small, thrown with force against the opposite wall.  It rolled to rest on the floor, invisible but for the way it shone in the weak dawnlight.  A ring.

“I’m not leaving you, please.” Hawke begged, “I promised you my life, and I meant it. But if we don’t stop the Wardens, then my life won’t be all that long.”

“So let me come with you.”

“I can’t. I can’t fight beside you anymore, you know that.  I’m so busy watching your back and worrying. Remember the last time we tried?”

“The Arishok.” Fenris murmured.

“Exactly. Corypheus is my mistake, and I can’t fix it if I’m distracted.”

The room grew quiet, and Cullen bit his lip. The slightest noise would give him away. He could imagine the damage it would do, a stranger intruding at such a critical moment. No sound came from the other side, and he could only guess what silent sentiments might have passed in those tension-stretched seconds. A frigid wind blew in and something shifted in the atmosphere, like the reversal of a pendulum swing.

“Distracting, am I?” Fenris said. The dry humor in his voice renewing Hawke’s hope, his next words coming loud and suggestive.

“Oh ho, yes. So distracting.” he said, accompanied by the distinctive noise of nails against skin. The sound drew images in Cullen’s mind and to his horror he felt a twitch of interest below his belt. Jumping out the hole in the wall and plummeting to his death was starting to sound like an attractive option. Louder, wetter kisses followed, and then even louder panting.

“I’m still mad at you.” Fenris whispered.

“And it’s still turning me on. What does that say about us?”

“It says you are making it up to me. Multiple times.”

“Hmm, when do we start?” Hawke purred, and pulled his partner away from the wall and together they stumbled through the door, one sloppy kiss at a time—into the Ambassador’s office.

“Sweet Maker!” Josephine’s lyrical voice shouted, muffled and distorted by the stone walls. The two men broke apart, and he thought he might die choking on his own boyish laughter.

“Sir Hawke, ah-” she stumbled, and he pictured the blush probably coloring her cheeks.  She must be flustered, for he’d never heard her stutter before. “I must ask you to find a room.”

“I rather thought that’s what we were doing.” Hawke replied, wincing when his partner elbowed him viciously in the side.

“Excuse us.” Fenris said, and dragged the Champion through the far door with a slam.

Cullen took a minute to catch his breath. His service to the Chantry gave him much, but at times he wondered at what cost. Might he have found someone? He imagined the Templars taking his sister instead, locking her in a tower while he tended the goats and fell in love and raised children.  

The idea made him feel as if he was hanging at the edge of a deep gorge, cut off from the rest of the world.  After a lifetime of looking out, only after cutting himself free did he realize the distance, the impossibility of ever reaching the other side.  

And yet, a tiny hope whispered, what if?  He rubbed the frayed ends of his bandages between thumb and forefinger and wondered, quietly enough to deny it later, if maybe the bond could be a second chance. He sensed Dorian moving in the pressure at his back, heard the muted echoes of his thoughts like a reverberating melody through chapel walls.  He was a mage now, for fuck’s sake. Anything was possible.

He checked himself in the window, tried to flatten his curls briefly before giving it up for a lost cause, and striding into Josephine’s office. She caught him in a smile a few degrees brighter than usual and returned it, cheeks tinted a dusky pink he found utterly charming.

“Cullen!” she said, eyes flicking between him and the hallway door, “I didn’t know you were still here.”

“Just leaving the War Room.” he lied, careful to keep his tone light and guileless “Why?”

“Oh, nothing.” she said, smoothing her skirts with practiced grace, cheeks darkening in a way Cullen might have missed if he hadn’t been expecting it. He smiled a bit wider and bid her farewell, stepping through the door and turning down the stairs toward Dorian’s room.

The bond was complicated, and awkward, and yes, quite dangerous.  But it could also be a fresh start, a whole new life for them to shape as they pleased.  And if they ran into some pitfalls, well, forever was an awfully long time to claw their way out.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen plays hardball, Dorian plays hard to get.

A cacophony echoed from the lower atrium, a discordant snarl of clattering plates, metal trays, and foreign bellowing. A muffled crash emerged from the residential corridor, and he ran through the arch at top speed. The chapel door shook.

"Bull?" Dorian shouted, "Let me out you dirty, overgrown pillock! You can't just lock someone in-"

A grate covered the center of the door, protecting a wooden window that hinged open to reveal the upper half of the mage's face. His enraged expression fell as recognition washed over him, morphing into something stony and unreadable.

Corpse-fingered chills danced up his spine followed by knives of undefinable emotion that twisted and stung. The hinge shrieked as the panel slammed shut, leaving him to talk to the unsympathetic wood.

"Dorian?"

Silence. Grasping the door handle, he gave it a gentle turn. Locked. Was his company so objectionable Dorian would rather be trapped in his own room? He checked the corridor for servants and runners, and gave an experimental shove. The bolt strained under the force but held. A frisson of the same piercing sensation plunged into his stomach and rolled in unpleasant flip-flops. Something about it struck him as familiar, like donning an old cloak and rediscovering the holes. Fear. Dorian was afraid. Anxious, alone, and locked in.

Lightheaded around the pounding of the bond, he tried to force the lock again. Nothing.

"Dorian, listen, I think you might be hysterical."

Harried footsteps shuffled inside. He inspected the hinges, and found no flaws. The grate gaped on one side and he curled his fingers into the fissure, leveraging his weight. Sharp edges bit into his palms, his muscles cringing, but he pulled anyway. The metal warped, and a nail budged. Hardly progress, but it energized him with hope.

"Try to breathe." he said through the timbers, "Can you hear me?"

No answer came, but he kept talking. He said whatever came to mind--reminders to sit, to relax, to put his head between his knees--silly, obvious things he always forgot to do when he woke from a nightmare panicked and alone.

One slat popped free and he wrenched it out, using the space for improved leverage. One bar at a time he pried until the grate came loose in a rain of rusty bolts. The peep hole had no grip on the outside, so he dug his nails in the wood to pry it open.

Dorian wrung his hands, ashen faced and walking a trench in the stonework.  Cullen rattled the door in the jam and he jumped like a spooked halla.

"Does a closed door mean nothing to you?"

"Are you alright?"

"My welfare is no concern of yours."

His mana pervaded the air and the furnace flared, illuminating him in a halo of crimson, cheeks quivering with each rapid inhale.

"I know. Take my hand." he said, shoving his arm as far as the opening allowed. No one ever witnessed his terrors, but he recalled endless nights longing for such simple comforts. He hoped his experience matched Dorian's. The door blinded him, held him on the razor's edge, convinced he'd made a horrible misstep.

A clammy palm covered his, tentative, barely there. He returned the touch slowly, knowing one wrong move would scare his companion away. He squeezed, releasing in time with his exhale and tightening again on his next breath. The silence itched, but he smothered the impulse to speak. Better to monitor the sibilant sound of breathing. The bond leveled, still swollen and reckless but no longer biting at his insides.

He slid back, drawing Dorian to the door by their clasped hands. Fraught, breathless, and sweaty, he still looked fit to hand out knighthoods. Really, it wasn't fair at all.

"Step back. I'm going to kick the door in." he said. Dorian bit his cheek from the inside, hollowing out the center of his face. "I wanted to blast it, but..."

Cullen nodded, recalling the wild magic detonating the rookery. He raised his foot to the latch.

"Stand back."

With a running start, he landed a vicious blow, splintering the wood. Two smaller kicks and the door gave in with a crack of timber. He could read the story of Dorian's week in the ravaged room. Travel gear sat in a mound by the door and books lay discarded on the floor among piles of clothing. Crumpled paper made a radius of litter around the desk, interrupted only by the oblong path he'd paced moments ago.

He was surprised to see Dorian armed and wearing his travelling cloak. He had shaved at some point, and the clean cuts made him uncanny, almost supernatural in his perfection.

"My hero." Dorian muttered, tackling the gap between Cullen and the doorjamb in a bid for freedom. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like some fresh air."

The tone sounded alarm bells in his hindbrain, and he hooked the mage before he could dart away. Rather than flesh and bone, his hand closed around the strap of a rucksack.

"You need an overnight bag for that?"

"You never know what you'll run into around here."

"And your staff?"

"Bears are excellent climbers." Dorian replied, detaching himself and darting down the corridor. Cullen pursued him, growing more desperate with every click of the mage's boot heels.  Doors flew past, taunting him.  How many paces did he have to reach the gates? Not enough, not nearly enough to penetrate his stubbornness. Maker, he needed more time.

"Won't you share breakfast with me? Before you go." he said, surprising himself, "If you still detest me after I will accept it, but can't we try?"

"There's nothing to try!" Dorian said, turning with an undignified flap of the leather satchel whacking his leg. His hands were shaking, the mask of calm over his features as brittle as cut glass.

The threat of departure left Cullen much the same, fidgety and tense and unable to act. His Veil let out a rusty, grinding shriek, and something shifted in Dorian's face like figures behind a curtain.

"Consider it a final request. One meal together. No loose ends."

Dorian blinked at him as though he'd ordered a charge on the Black City. Shifting from foot to foot, fingers clenched tight around the strap of his rucksack, he looked like the slightest breeze would dissolve him. Cullen grounded his feet, ready to give chase, but then Dorian flung his pack down the hall where it tumbled to a stop by his door. He smoothed his mustache with an unconscious flick.

"Is that what passes for a farewell in this god-forsaken country?" he sighed, rolling his eyes like bored royalty. "Plebeians, the lot of you."

 

* * *

 

"I've been checking you out." Dorian said, slathering a frankly appalling amount of jam on a scone.

"Oh?"

The mage wrinkled his nose, eyes flicking through the banister to the tavern door. The maintenance staff crowded the pub, taking advantage of the troops' absence to scour the sooty hearth, and the stench of lye chased them to their rickety table upstairs. Distance made no difference to Dorian, the open arch drawing him like a sailor to the siren's call. Cullen knocked the spoon from his bowl on purpose, the metal-on-wood clatter snagging the man's attention and reeling it back where it belonged.

"Knight-Captain of the Kirkwall Chantry. During the Rebellion, so the story goes." Dorian said.

Cullen choked on his porridge. He beat his chest to quell the coughing but could do nothing to stop it burning all the way down. Dorian flinched. Abruptly, the arrangement of his utensils seemed very important.

"You don't dither around the blow, do you?"

"I'm Tevene, we don't do anything by halves."

Even in a dusty tavern Dorian sat with a rod up his back, arms hovering above the table at tidy right angles, and cut his food into perfect little squares. The light from the door fell over his cheeks and filled his eyes with the gleam of unknowable destinations.

Cullen marshalled his thoughts. Enough idle chatter, enough wasting limited time. The moment he finished eating Dorian would be gone, and he'd have no more excuses to keep him.

"Why are you afraid of me?" he asked, fingers white against the counter. The bond pressed in on them, like swimming deep underwater where the weight of the Void made holding breath difficult. His companion stirred his tea with even whips of a long-handled spoon, a smirk like a steel trap opening on his face.

"Who says I am?"

"Intuition."

"You first." he dared.

Cullen sat up straighter, plucking words carefully from the ether.

"My office was meters from the bomb. Had I not been summoned minutes before, I would be dead. Now you, answer my question." he said, raising the bowl of porridge and sipping. The slop was watery and bland, but he tolerated it. Nothing tasted good sober. Despite a noble attempt to hide it, he did not miss Dorian's shudder. He contemplated another sip to spite him, lifting the rim to his lips.

"For the love of all that is holy, just take mine." the mage said, sliding a pile of strangely wrinkled buns toward him, "Even second-hand it's putting me off."

"You can sense it?"

"And you covered your ears when I opened the Veil. It's a brave new world, blessings be upon it and all that rot. Now eat the damn _ma'moul_ and spare me the aftertaste."

He eyed the stack of foreign pastries and selected one, utterly derailed. It had a flakey crust like crumpled paper, and dried out his mouth when he bit in. A grainy texture assaulted his tongue, followed by an acidic flavor that made his sinuses want to crawl out of his skull. He dropped the other half on the pile and pushed the whole plate away.

"Finished? Well then, I suppose this is goodbye." Dorian said, throwing down his cutlery, " _Per gratia_ , Commander."

In moments he was on his feet and taking all the air with him. Haunting visions flickered in and out, terrible flashes of Iron Bull carrying Dorian through the gates. So goddamn young, he couldn't be older than twenty-four. The Fade, the bond, the bandages on his hands, all endured so this overgrown child could kill them both with a tantrum. He searched for anything to make him stay, eyes falling on the platter of discarded tarts. Salvation.

"On second thought, these are delicious. Cabot!" he shouted downstairs. The barkeep glanced up at him like he'd gone mad. "Another plate of these, Lord Pavus must regain his strength." he said, splitting the pile between them and tossing the platter down to a stout barmaid. "Right, Dorian?  Look, you've barely touched your food. Let's show him some Southern hospitality!"

The maids froze, a cloud of murmuring wool and whispering white cotton until their supervisor urged them on. A pair of pretty Fereldens pranced up the stairs and pressed Dorian back into his seat. The bond trembled, angry spikes stabbing Cullen like rose thorns. The girls fretted over them a bit, scrubbing down the table and refreshing their napkins, and he dismissed them with a smile.

"That was low." Dorian whispered.

"You dishonor them." Cullen scolded, holding his grin well past its expiry and raising his voice, "The Maker has blessed us with the finest staff in Thedas."

The barmaid brought up the tray, slapping it hard on the counter. They both flinched.

"Oh yes, the visage of perfection." Dorian said. "Do you intend to eat until I agree to stay?"

"If I must." Cullen bluffed, shredding a second pastry and popping one bite at a time into his mouth. The repulsive flavor making him gag every time. Dorian sniffed and rubbed under his nose, his forehead damp with sweat as he twisted his napkin in his other hand.

Cullen dried his sweaty fingers on his slacks and reached for a fresher tart. He'd hoped to find common ground, to gain his trust with the hand of friendship, but there was no chance of that now. Time to change tactics.

He stretched out with his mind's eye for their ethereal link, willing himself to focus on the stream of energy. It swam into view, the same unbalanced braid of champagne and silverite, but drawn tight as a fishing line. Curious, he raised a finger to where it plunged into his chest and plucked. The steady crawl of mana ruptured, spiraling like dust tornadoes in a prism of vivid hues. The particles trailed around one another, colliding and gently falling back in line to continue their endless circuit. Eyebrows shooting up, Dorian turned in his chair to check behind him, only to whirl back around a moment later, oblivious to the spectacle right before him. He cocked his head, as though trying to catch a distant melody.

Interesting. Rubbing his hands together to warm them up, he settled them on top of the table in a loose weave. The thumb of his right hand lay a hair's breadth from the bond, where he could sense it pulsing from Dorian's anxiety. If he reacted, the mana would show it, and Cullen would know he'd hit on something significant.

“Where will you go?  Back to Tevinter?”

“Starkhaven.”

“You have friends there?”

“Contacts.” Dorian corrected, sipping his tea and lowering the cup delicately to the saucer.  A lick of warmth ghosted his finger, but it was a small thing, a flash in the pan. It cast a sickly green glow under his chin.

“And which of those would I be?”

Dorian mulled over his words for several seconds before he answered with unflinching eye contact.

“You are… a castle in the air.” he said, the green light becoming a brilliant blue even as his expression remained impassive.  That sounded wistful, almost longing, but that couldn't be right. If that were true, why would he want to leave? The same piercing fear that had haunted Dorian all day fell into Cullen once more, and his mind buzzed as he linked cause to effect.  Of course the problem wasn’t him, but the bond itself.

"I'm afraid of it too, you know." he said, a bit rushed in the wake of revelation. A mistake. The bond flared so bright it bathed the entire table in emerald light.

"I am not afraid." Dorian snapped, "And I will not be told what to feel. Not by anyone."

"Is that a genuine possibility?"

Dorian sprang from his seat as the bond erupted, geysers popping in all directions. He followed him up the steps, into the room in the attic and caught the door with his toe.

Sliding the lock behind him seemed a good idea. The need to help became a physical force once channeled through their connection, but he marched himself to the other door and locked it as well. A deep breath, not for himself, but for Dorian, and he dove in head first.

The mage walked uneasy ovals around the debris, and he was treated to the mental image of the tower collapsing on them, or worse, consumed by fiend fire. But this time he was ready, he drank Dorian's fear and held it in his arms. Kicking and screaming as viciously as any mortal creature, it fought to flow through. He imagined a river inside, a circular river where he could contain it as long as necessary. Magic existed to serve man, and it would not rule over him. They would overcome.

He took Dorian by the shoulders and led him to the sit on the ratty mattress. The magic sapped his energy, mana soaking his bandages, and he knew they only a few minutes before they were in real trouble. The man was trembling under his palms, breathing a shallow, halting rhythm in an attempt to hold his control. He ran his right hand up Dorian's shoulder to cup the back of his neck and guide his head between his knees.

"Deep breaths." he said, hesitating before moving his other hand to rub stilted circles over Dorian's back. The muscles under his hands shook like quaking earth. Cullen suspected he'd find his eyes glassy if he dared to look, but he didn't want to know. They tremored with the silent sobs of a man accustomed to secret pain, his body revolting against the sound he trapped in his throat with painful spasms and choking inhalations. He couldn't bear to watch, so he stared at the door, his hand never pausing in its meaningless loop. There was nothing to say, so he didn't speak.

Dorian ran out of steam after a minute or so. He hicupped into his sleeve and dabbed at his nose with the tail of his cloak, and the mundanity of it sucked the tension from the room. Cullen slumped beside him, expecting to be cast out, but instead he found a hand scrabbling to clutch at his knee. He drug his palm up until it landed on a shoulder and gave it a matching squeeze.

"Tell me the truth." Dorian whispered, swallowing to loosen his throat, "Leaving was never really an option, was it?"

"Couldn't have stopped you."

"But it wasn't."

He picked at a thread on his pants, near a blotchy mana stain, and shook his head 'no'. Dorian ached, and Cullen worried he might start up again, but he didn't.

"It's not fair." Dorian said to his own ankles, "I met— _fasta vass_ , I can't believe I'm telling you this—I met a sailor on my way South. He asked me where I was going, and I didn't know. So I lied, made up someone waiting for me. Beautiful long hair and eyes like an icicle. A lover of music and dancing, but terribly dull so I could do all the talking."

His voice came out hushed and scalding, a funeral for a life he would never live. Cullen hadn't pegged him as a romantic.  All wit and passion with a tireless mind, he seemed more of a nomadic bohemian than the type to settle down and raise chickens. Friendly as he could be, there always seemed to be a perimeter around Dorian, like standing too close might be hazardous.  He'd assumed the mage preferred distance in the way academics often did, but now he doubted it.

"You can still have that." Cullen said.

"Oh, and after the honeymoon, I suppose we'll come shack up with you, shall we? My mythical husband and I. Have ourselves a jolly little _menage-au-trois_."

Cullen wanted to protest, but he couldn't deny the absurdity. He let his hand slide off Dorian's spine, awkward for the honesty, to clasp in his lap. The sticky dampness gave him shivers.

"Well you'll have me." Cullen said, picking the sludge out of his cuticles. "Pretty definitely."

To his horror, the bond perked at his words, a fresh trickle of fire creeping around the tether. He pressed his hands into his eye sockets, massaging his brain as much as his face.

"Pretend I didn't say that."

"Commande-" Dorian paused, correcting himself, "Cullen, you are... an attractive man, and I like you very much."

"But?"

"But if this is going to work, you must promise we will never be intimate. In that way."

Cullen nodded, even as he flinched internally. The rushing ache in his chest caught him off guard, as did the bitter after-burn of regret. Typical, that he only realized the extent of his attraction after being soundly rejected. He stuffed it under a thick insulation of numbness, and told himself rejection was a mercy. Whether or not he believed his own advice was irrelevant. Belief would not change what he must say to keep Dorian by his side.  He extended his hand despite the grinding in his bones.

"No complications." he promised.

Slender fingers encircled his elbow, and he answered it with a firm grasp.

"No complications." Dorian agreed, clinging to Cullen's arm like he would crumble without it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please let me know with comments and kudos. Your continued support is the only reason this chapter got done. Thank you so much.
> 
> Fic bits, Cullrian trash posting, and inspiration images can be found @ dendrite-blues.tumblr.com. 
> 
> And, as always, a special thanks to my awesome lazer-eyes beta, Dapper Dear @ dapperdear.tumblr.com.


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